Why did Will Smith reject the opportunity to play Superman?

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After more than a decade of the decidedly bleak Snyderverse, the charming “Superman” of James Gunn “Superman” has made DC movies fun again. Ignoring the series and the films of the 1940s in which Superman appears, but it was not the main character, “Superman” of Gunn is the seventh adaptation of the character’s live action, and although it never coincided with the legendary status of the 1978 seminal film of Richard Donner, at least he has given us an original vision of Steel’s man.

You cannot say exactly the same as “Superman Returns” of 2006. The film was essentially the ODA of director Bryan Singer for Richard Donner/Christopher Reeve’s movies, and in reality it worked as a direct sequel to “Superman II” of 1980. Said that, among Superman’s films, “return” is far from the worst entry, and despite the fact that Singer is supported by the allegory. Too hard sometimes, it is full of large pieces and has a solid turn of Brandon Routh at the head.

“Superman Returns” did not get a sequel, but not because it was a failure by exit. In fact, he won $ 391 million at the global box office, which at that time was a solid shot. Unfortunately, the film cost incredible $ 232 million to win, ensuring that almost certainty did not make money for Warner Bros. after several people involved with the film began to abandon the preparations for a sequel, everything collapsed before Zack Snyder reinvented Superman with “Man of Steel” in 2013, Rico Donner, the integro. Meanwhile, at first, after being put on a road to the megagardo, Routh vanished in the dark in the years after the film. With that in mind, it is probably for the best that Will Smith decided to reject the movie.

Will Smith has made some mistakes in his career, and that puts him lightly. Anyone who follows the career after man and his recent musical efforts will surely have asked the question: “Will Will Smith are?” But some of their minor mistakes involve rejecting roles that it should really have taken. Smith rejected Neo’s role in “The Matrix”, then, 25 years later, he made a music video inserting in the movie in another “Is Will Smith?” moment. Smith rejected the “beginning” of Christopher Nolan because “he did not understand” and even almost rejected “men in black” until Steven Spielberg intervened.

As such, the star “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” has demonstrated a notable talent to say “no” to the films that became mega hits. But a role that is not summarized so easily is Superman’s in “Superman returns. Talking to MTV news In 2008, the actor said:

“The last ‘Superman’ that they offered me, the script came and thought: ‘There is no way to be playing Superman!’ Because Jim West had already done (from ‘Wild Wild West’), and you can’t be ruining the white heroes in Hollywood.

There was so much that it went wrong with the “Wild West” of 1999, but I am not sure that the film became the critical and commercial disaster that it did simply because Smith “ruined the heroes of the whites”, although it may not be so serious when he said that. That film was a restart of television cinema from the sixties “The Wild Wild West”, and director Barry Sonnenfeld said in his memoirs “The best possible place, the worst possible moment: real stories of a race in Hollywood”, That original star, Robert Conrad, actually threatened violence if Jim West was played by a black man. Therefore, there is some basis for the evaluation of Smith, but the real problems with the film itself included the complete lack of chemistry between Smith and his co -star Kevin Kline and the fact that, as Terrence Rafferty of the New Yorker said, the film was “completely without feeling and useless.”

It is difficult to say what would have happened with “Superman Returns” if Will Smith had assumed the main role. In a sense, he was right in rejecting the film simply based on what would happen to her. “Returns” is far from being a disaster of the proportions of “Wild Wild West”, but it is also overlooked, which for a star of the magnitude of Smith (despite its most recent debacles) would not have been the best aspect.

On the other hand, Smith’s participation could have completely changed the impact and legacy of “returns.” Not only would it have been the first black superman on screen, but it was a much larger star than Brandon Routh, which would surely have increased the attractiveness of the film, which could cause a larger box office shot and, who knows, perhaps a story on the completely different screen for the steel man.

In a moment, there were Two black Superman projects in development, one is a film produced by JJ Abrams written by Ta-Nehisi Coates and the other one HBO Max series with Michael B. Jordan attached. The former Superman actor, Henry Cavill, gave his personal blessing for the Black Superman projects, saying that the superhero was “much more than the color of the skin”, but we have not yet seen that a project materializes. Now that James Gunn has assumed the position of DC Head Honcho (together with producer Peter Safran) and launched a new cohesive universe, it seems likely that any of those projects really happens. If Smith had taken the concert of “Superman Returns”, then at least he would have made history and, as such, he “returns” something more than a solid but forgettable entrance in the film canon of Steel’s man.