I usually agree with everything my pal Paul Harris writes but I'm not sure if I agree or not with this article of his. It's about how Apple has a not-yet-released movie starring Will Smith and if and when (it's probably a when) they're going to release it. I don't think it's a question of how long Smith should be "canceled" because of that Oscar slap. It might be a question — which no one can answer for sure until they do release it — of how much Smith has lowered himself in some eyes and how much his box office power has been diminished.
We have no proof that it's been diminished at all. And if/when it is released, its box office returns may not be an indicator of that.
Maybe I'm atypical of moviegoers — I know I don't see as many as some people — but I never had the slightest desire to see a Will Smith movie. I think he's a terrific actor and I thought King Richard was a great movie and he was great in it. But I wanted to see the movie, not Will Smith. There are certain movie stars who define the kind of movie they're usually in. That happens less and less these days. It's been a long time since Clint Eastwood made the kind of movies that caused people to say "Let's go see the new Clint Eastwood movie" because his name meant an action film with lots of shooting and brutality. "Let's go see the new Steve Martin film" once denoted a certain kind of comedy.
Whether people will go to see the next Will Smith movie will depend on a couple of things but a big one is whether it's any good. Every big star makes some that don't attract an audience and if Emancipation (about which I have heard almost nothing except that Apple's afraid to release it) comes out and its box office disappoints, that might be because audiences are shunning the slapper…or it might for the same reason that no one went to see Moonfall. It wasn't because Halle Berry had slapped someone at the Oscars. It was because no one wanted to see that movie.
But it might just be because some people just have a more negative view of Mr. Smith than they used to. If Bill Cosby were to do a new tour with his comedy act, a lot of people might boycott him on principle but a lot might just say, "I don't think I can laugh at that man anymore." Which is everyone's right. I think less of Will Smith as a human being because of his actions but I'm not sure that would stop me from seeing a movie he was in which I heard was real good. I wouldn't go to see it because he was in it and I wouldn't not go to see it because he was in it. I'm sure I've enjoyed a lot of movies whose casts included people who'd done things I thought were awful. I even liked the Naked Gun movies O.J. was in.
I guess I agree with Paul because I think Apple should just release the film and be done with it. I just don't think, not that Paul seems to, that its ticket sales will be any kind of referendum on how America feels about an actor slapping another human being. Maybe it'll stand or fall on its own merits as a film.