Will Smith Just Skipped A Huge Premiere Event
The fallout from the Academy Awards never seems to end, as reports say Will Smith did not attend a public event for a very big project.
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Will Smith continues to keep things low-key after his recent controversy. The cast of Bel-Air recently got together for a red carpet event promoting the Peacock reboot of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and it seems like Smith decided to not attend. Smith starred in the original show, in the role that really helped him breakthrough into the mainstream. He executive produces the new show.
If you somehow missed the news, Will Smith is still dealing with the fallout from slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars. Chris Rock made a joke at the expense of Jada Pinkett-Smith’s hair loss, which led Smith to walk on stage and slap the comedian. He then returned to his seat and yelled several expletives at Rock. Will Smith would later accept the Oscar for Best Actor for his role in King Richard, as the doting and devoted father of tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams.
The Bel-Air event was held yesterday in Los Angeles and had many of the series stars in attendance, including Adrian Holmes, Jimmy Akingbola, Cassandra Freeman, Akira Akbar, Jabari Banks, and Coco Jones. The reboot series was developed by Will Smith and Morgan Cooper, who made a fan film giving a dramatic spin to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 2019, leading to the current show. Smith initially attended the series premiere event in February 2022, before the aforementioned Oscars controversy.
Will Smith has since apologized for his behavior and resigned from the Academy board. The Academy took some extra time to come up with a response to Smith’s slap, with the final verdict banning him from all Academy events for a decade. Smith can still be nominated for awards during this period.
Will Smith has a few projects that have been affected by the slap, but it appears it won’t make too much of a difference for the actor. The Apple film Emancipation was pushed back but is still coming out. The reason for the pushback was unclear, but it could be a number of factors. The slap is one, but it could be that Apple already has a stacked release slate for the rest of the year and they want to spread out their big releases. Emancipation also had Oscar buzz, so they may want to place it in a better release window to win over the Academy. Emancipation will tell the story of a runaway slave escaping plantation owners in the swamps of Louisana. Antoine Fuqua directs a script by Bill Collage. The movie is now in post-production and has been pushed from its 2022 release date to 2023.
Netflix recently took Fast and Loose off the release slate shortly after Will Smith’s slap. They have no plans of moving forward with the project at this time. While rumors indicated that Bad Boys 4 was going to be delayed due to the slap, a Deadline interview with Sony Chairman Tom Rothman revealed that the rumors were not true and that fans should still expect to see Bad Boys 4 in the near future.
