Hey, look at that, Jafaar Jackson has decided to seriously pursue acting after starring as his late uncle Michael Jackson in “Michael,” the $1B+ blockbuster.
Jackson has found his next project in David Gordon Green’s “Supermax,” joining Will Smith in the Amazon/MGM Studios action movie.
What an odd actor/director combo this already was, and adding Jackson only further eccentricizes it.
David Gordon Green, once an indie darling and later a Blumhouse IP hitmaker, teaming up with Smith on a streaming-only action movie about two FBI agents investigating a murder that has taken place in the world’s most secure prison.
Yes, Amazon/MGM recently picked up worldwide rights in the $70M range, making this Smith’s first non-franchise studio movie in years — it’s set to start production in a few weeks. However, the plan is for the film to bypass theaters entirely and go straight to streaming.
Smith’s FBI agent partner in “Supermax” is a female role, with AnnaSophia Robb recently cast. The screenplay comes from David Weil and David J. Rosen, the duo behind “Hunters.”
In a way, this is a project involving two artists, Green and Smith, currently searching for new identities in their careers.
Green, still shaking off the stench from “The Exorcist: Believer,” quickly pivoted to the smaller “Nutcrackers” in 2024, starring Ben Stiller, which received mixed reviews and debuted on Hulu. Once viewed by critics as a possible heir to Terrence Malick after early films like “George Washington,” “All the Real Girls,” “Undertow,” and “Snow Angels,” and championed by Roger Ebert, Green later directed acclaimed films including “Joe,” “Stronger,” and “Prince Avalanche” before spending the last seven years helming three “Halloween” sequels and “The Exorcist: Believer” for Blumhouse.
Smith, meanwhile, continues his Hollywood comeback after the infamous 2022 slap involving Chris Rock and remains in a rebranding phase of his career. His Oscar win for “King Richard” was overshadowed by the controversy, the resulting 10-year ban from Academy events, and the unusually subdued slate of projects he has taken on since then.
Together, Green and Smith may need each other at this point, though the collaboration will arrive as a straight-to-streaming project.
The theatrical version runs 108 minutes, so we're talking a nearly 2-hour-10-minute cut of a movie that works because it's lean, and I'm not sure anyone needs that.