Will Smith visited San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday to promote his upcoming $100 million Netflix movie “Bright” (See below for trailer). He also discussed that viral photo of him bungee-jumping and he appears to be morphing into Uncle Phil. What started as a dopey question of a simple viral pic somehow transformed into this philosophical discussion and exploration of how technology has changed in the past three decades, the cultural evolution of fame, and how the relationship between celebrities and their fans have changed over time.
“It is such a new world. I released my first record in ’86, so I’m over 30 years in the business. My first album there were no CDs, so it wasn’t until my second album, and they came like these hot new things called CDs. Seeing that transition, essentially the fans being more and more involved in the creative process. In terms of movie stars, it’s a huge difference. It’s like you almost can’t make new movies stars anymore. It’s like there’s a certain amount of privacy and there was a certain amount of distance that you had from the audience, and only on July 4th did you have access. So that amount of access created this bigger-than-life kind of thing. But in the shift into this new world, it’s almost like a friendship with the fans. The relationship is less like the time of Madonna, Michael Jackson, when you could make the Tom Cruise these gigantic figures, because you can’t create that anymore. The shift is to ‘we’re best friends,’ and that’s like with the comments and with those pictures and all that. I love trying to make that shift and make that transition into the new demands of the fans in this business.”
Yeah, that’s all fine and good, but what about the photo of how you look like Uncle Phil when you were bungee-jumping?
The first trailer for the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” star’s latest project debuted on Friday. The fantasy movie is titled “Bright,” and it is said to cost $100 million, making it Netflix’s most expensive original film yet. Smith is a human cop who gets paired up with some kind of Orc cop played by Joel Edgerton. This buddy cop movie takes place in an alternate version of present day Earth where there are elves and fairies all over the place. “Suicide Squad” and “End of Watch” director David Ayer helms the movie. “Bright” is scheduled for release on Netflix on December 22nd.
[Uproxx]