Will Smith has won his first (and only) award this season for his lead turn in “Emancipation.” Although Apple TV had some hopes that the slavery epic would be a major player, they’ll have to settle for the NAACP’s Image Award for outstanding actor in a motion picture.
This is Smith’s first awards win since he slapped Chris Rock onstage and won the Best Actor Oscar for “King Richard.” Heartfelt congrats to Slick Willy.
The other nominees in this category were Daniel Kaluuya (“Nope”), Jonathan Majors (“Devotion”), Joshua Boone (“A Jazzman’s Blues”) and Sterling K. Brown (“Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul”). Why didn’t Kaluuya win?
Smith has been a very busy man these last few months with recently greenlit two new projects: “Bad Boys 4” and “I Am Legend 2,” both set to go into production this year.
Antoine Fuqua directed “Emancipation,” so we never really thought it stood a chance at awards. The critics sunk it with a 46% on Rotten Tomatoes — it is available on stream on Apple TV. I’d be curious to know what its numbers were on the platform.
It’s not like Smith is a bad actor, but here he chose the wrong filmmaker to work with. Smith can be very good (“Ali,” “Enemy of the State”) but only when he’s in a competently written and directed movie. This is not one of those projects and his upcoming ones don’t look any better either.
Paul Greengrass’ "The Uprising," starring Andrew Garfield, opened to $3.2M from 2,068 theaters this weekend. Yikes. The budget hasn’t been disclosed, but is said to be in the $20-$30M range.