In other Will Smith news, future of Fantastic Voyage remake depends on famed rapper Will Smith

By Sean O'Neal | August 18, 2011 | 9:38pm

Aux Features Film

Having lost his burgeoning muse Hugh Jackman to the quickly regenerated Wolverine, apparently director Shawn Levy’s heart simply isn’t in making Fox’s Fantastic Voyage anymore. Just a few months ago, Levy and Jackman were close to rekindling their Real Steel partnership on the similar big-budget sci-fi picture that—despite being a remake of a famous, nearly 50-year-old film—provokes involuntary associations with ‘90s hip-hop artist Coolio, the suppressing of which would lead to dangerous blood clots in the brain that could only be eradicated using some kind of atomic-sized submarine.

Anyway, now that Jackman has moved on, Levy’s only chance for staying with the project, oddly enough, hinges on one of Coolio’s contemporaries from the world of pleasant rap: Will Smith, whom Levy has begun courting to head up his team of shrinky-dink scientists. Because he you knows you can’t have the hop if you don’t have the hip, Levy is expected to exit Fantastic Voyage if Smith turns it down and he can’t find another “mutually agreeable star” quickly, meaning the film that has already passed through the shaky hands of Paul Greengrass and other directors could once again start over from square one. Unfortunately for Levy and Fox, Smith is suddenly pretty busy—and like we keep referencing out of neurological necessity, somebody already wrote a “Fantastic Voyage” song.