Will Smith is Supermaxxing

Let’s try to sort through the logic of sending this one to streaming. For one thing, David Gordon Green is coming off the massive failure of his Exorcist trilogy, a series he lost after the kickoff, Exorcist: Believer, bombed. Universal paid more than $400 million for the rights to the franchise and handed the reins to Green, who had just completed his Halloween trilogy for the studio. We suppose Universal, at least, was happy with that series. We’re not sure we can say the same for anyone else. (Well, except Corey, the star of one of the great movies about a killer named Corey, Halloween Ends.) Universal pivoted to a version from Mike Flannagan as Green rebounded on TV, where he does his best work now, with the shows Scarpetta, starring Nicole Kidman, and Apple TV’s Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, with Tatiana Maslany. Supermax was written by Hunters and Invasion scribes David Weil and David J. Rosen, who created Maximum Pleasure (the show, not the feeling).

Smith’s last streaming play was the slavery drama, Emancipation, directed by Antoine Fuqua, released only months after Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, won an Oscar for King Richard, and retreated to his rap career. Perhaps there is some trepidation about Smith in non-franchise films. His last theatrically released non-sequel or franchise film was Gemini Man, Ang Lee’s high-frame-rate sci-fi movie in which Smith squared off against a younger, more computer-generated version of himself. Before that movie bombed, he starred in Collateral Beauty, one of the great Oscar-bait misfires of the century. He also voiced the lead spy in disguise in the animated movie Spies In Disguise, which grossed nearly $200 million but never received a sequel. Still, Smith’s last blockbuster, Bad Boys: Ride Or Die, released three years after The Slap, made more than $400 million. 

The studio’s last theatrically released, similarly budgeted action movie, Crime 101, starring Chris Hemsworth, Halle Berry, and Mark Ruffalo, cost $90 million and failed to recoup its budget. The quasi-reheated ’90s genre riff was pretty good, receiving strong reviews from critics and making a dent on Prime’s top 10 when it hit streaming. Supermax looks to repeat that success without the theatrical misfire.