  Will Smith has the ability to draw moviegoers in huge numbers. His new flick, I Am Legend, promises to be another box-office bonanza.
|
BEVERLY HILLS -- Filming his post-apocalyptic thriller I Am Legend, Will Smith got used to being saluted by New Yorkers.
"Percentage-wise, it's the most amount of middle fingers I've ever received in my career," Smith says.
And this is the guy who made Wild, Wild West.
Why the hostility? Because to create a near-future Manhattan that has been left desolate and derelict by a lethal man-made virus, the production shut down streets and tangled traffic for more than 40 days.
"We shut down six blocks of Fifth Avenue on a Monday morning -- that was probably poor planning," Smith says during a recent media conference to promote the movie, which opens Friday.
"It's chilling to walk down the middle of Fifth Avenue ... At two o'clock in the morning on a Sunday, you can't walk down the middle of Fifth Avenue."
For the 39-year-old superstar extraordinaire, the less-than-jiggy public reception admittedly took some getting used to.
"I'm used to people liking me."
And, of course, they do and still will, at least if their morning commute isn't disrupted. In an era when stars are more vilified than respected, more victimized than beloved, Smith is a cheerful, impervious anomaly. As a box-office commodity, he is arguably peerless -- surpassing the likes of Cruise, Pitt and Hanks and able to attract audiences to even such middling entertainments as I, Robot and Hitch. Nor is his clout tethered strictly to extravaganzas in which he saves the world or gets the girl. Last year's The Pursuit of Happyness, a drama about a homeless father, may have predictably won Smith accolades, but it also earned $163 million in North America alone. Altogether, his movies have amassed more than $4 billion -- awfully impressive for someone who began his career as a rapper and sitcom star. Even now, Smith can pinpoint the day he graduated from fresh prince to Hollywood imperator. "July 6, 1996 -- the Monday after Independence Day opened," he says. "That morning when the box office came out (it was) 'Good morning, Mr. Smith.' It was so bizarre I specifically remember that."
And in the decade since, Smith has prevailed against the currents of celebrity self-destruction. He may be a superstar, but he has never been a spectacle. Nor has he let his private life degenerate into a gossip sideshow. Moreover, professionally, he has never acquired a reputation for being difficult or demanding. "It's sort of a cliche," Legend director Francis Lawrence says, "but Will's a pretty great guy to work with. He's really professional. He's as positive as can be. He's really smart. He's good with story. He's a great actor. He's creative, inventive -- you can't ask for a better person to work with."
And it's doubtful without Smith's clout, I Am Legend would've been made at all. The property, based on the Richard Matheson 1954 novel that had already been adapted into the 1971 thriller Omega Man with Charlton Heston, had languished for years in development.
A decade earlier, Arnold Schwarzenegger was going to star in it for Alien director Ridley Scott before a ballooning budget scuttled it.
A succession of filmmakers and actors followed until Smith came aboard with his Bad Boys director Michael Bay.
Eventually Bay bailed to direct The Island and Transformers, but Smith continued to circle, fascinated by the story's protagonist Robert Neville, the last non-zombie on earth.
Finally, two years ago, Lawrence, hot off the Keanu Reeves occult thriller Constantine, signed to direct.
Given that Smith has his pick of projects, why did he feel such an affinity for such a grim tale? "With movies, I am really connecting to the (author) Joseph Campbell's idea of the collective unconscious ... That separation from people, that being ripped away from people, coupled with the unknown of the dark and how we would fare in that realm, it's a primal idea.
"I loved this concept because it connects to ideas a 4-year-old can understand."
With Smith and Lawrence signed, production commenced last year in New York. And while the post-apocalyptic drama has become a genre unto itself with its own rules, expectations and landscapes, Lawrence believes the world they created resembles what would happen following a real-life catastrophe.
"We asked scientists and ecologists what would happen to a city once the population disappeared. And the truth is, nature would start to reclaim it ... It would probably become a more beautiful place."
With I Am Legend out Friday, Smith will next be seen as an alcoholic superhero in Hancock, out next summer. In March, before the probable Screen Actor's Guild strike hits in June, he'll shoot the drama Seven Pounds. Off-screen, he is plotting a return to his hip-hop roots -- hitting the road next summer with his former cohort, DJ Jazzy Jeff.
"Jeff and I perform a couple times a year, but we're going to go big in July."
For most of Hollywood, however, he'll likely remain Mr. Smith.
More Artists
