re: Is Seven Pounds the movie that killed Will Smith's career?

I don't think it's a single movie. He seemed to be slowing down in general. Maybe it was just an accumulation of people getting tired of his cocky persona, and a change in culture of Hollywood away from the dominance of the movie star who sold tickets solely by being in a movie.

I know that I had gotten tired of him long before this movie came out. I haven't seen a movie by him in well over 10 years.

Look at his IMDB page. There's a lot of hubris in the Will Smith hate.

Will even had admitted that his ego got the best of him for choosing to do Wild Wild West. Seven Pounds wasn't great, but it wasn't insanely terrible either. I liked I, Robot and all three of the MiB movies, especially the last one. I watched Focus the other night, and it wasn't bad. I'm looking forward to Suicide Squad, and the rumored Bad Boys 3. Still holding out hope that General Steven Hiller makes and appearance in the new Independence Day.

For all intents and purposes, After Earth is the only movie he's put out in the last decade that you could argue was insanely bad, and thats pretty much killed Jaden's career. I'm hoping Will's people sat down with him and told him "look we know you're trying to help out your boy, but he has no talent."

So really, what else has Will done that merits the bad rep?

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So really, what else has Will done that merits the bad rep?

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It's just become trendy to dislike him. I know I'll be ridiculed here but I didn't find After Earth that bad.

The song "getting jiggy wit it" took all of his street cred away.

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I know I'll be ridiculed here but I didn't find After Earth that bad.

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I'm not going to ridicule you. But it was a bad movie. Bad. Terrible. Like one of the worst I've seen. Ever.

Jaden has no acting skill. Wilson the Volleyball had more range than Jaden Smith.

I like Will, I enjoy most of his movies. I grew up with Fresh Prince. I also don't blame Will and Jada for trying to use their success to get their kids opportunities.

But they just don't have talent. At all. And Jaden, bless his heart, apparently has a very warped sense of reality. I feel bad for him.

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So really, what else has Will done that merits the bad rep?

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Even when he was on he made formulaic mainstream Hollywood movies. There's nothing wrong with this. It just isn't very interesting. His type of movies will never be the type of thing that I go out of my way to see.

On a personal note, I don't like that an Asimov story that got the Hollywood treatment starred him. They just lifted the title of the book and the 3 laws of robotics and made the rest up.

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Even when he was on he made formulaic mainstream Hollywood movies. There's nothing wrong with this. It just isn't very interesting.

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Thats a fair assessment.

Nah, I think that piece of shite that he and his wife squirted out back in 98 is the actual beginning of the end of his career.

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Even when he was on he made formulaic mainstream Hollywood movies. There's nothing wrong with this. It just isn't very interesting.

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And that was by design. I think Will Smith is actually a really good actor, but his career was built upon "easy" jobs like the movies you mentioned. He and and his agent carefully planned out his career once Fresh Prince of Bel Air took off. They made a plan to make him one of the biggest movie stars in the world, and it worked like a charm.

And IMO Will Smith's career hasn't been killed at all; he's just chosen far fewer roles since about 2008. Don't forget that while Seven Pounds wasn't breaking any records, it still made three times its budget, and that was just a few months after Hancock brought home $624 million at the BO.

Even his "misses" still make bank. So IMO it's just that he backed away from the spotlight for a while (to focus on other things, or to help his kids and their careers, whatever else..). I mean shite, even After Earth made almost $250 million and Focus made $160 million (against a $50 million budget). I know BO results aren't the end-all/be-all, but it's a solid reference to how bankable someone is (a.k.a. that their career hasn't been "killed").

Plus he has Suicide Squad coming out, and this Concussion movie will be in the national media for a while I bet (considering the current state of the NFL).

I'd say his career is doing just fine.

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apparently didn't learn much from that because he turned down Django Unchained because it wasn't will smithy enough

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Nobody could've played Django but Jamie Foxx. IMHO.