After being left feeling ‘betrayed’ by Will Smith, Jaden asked about ‘being an emancipated minor’.
Jaden, who is the son of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, continued his family’s tradition of acting by co-starring with his dad in the 2006 film The Pursuit of Happyness.
One of their other films together, though, was a box office bomb.
After Earth, a post-apocalyptic action-adventure, was Will and Jaden’s 2013 release.
Will came up with the idea for the film based on a narrative he had about a father and kid going on a camping vacation. A thousand years from now, due to an environmental disaster on Earth, all humanity are evacuated to another planet. This was originally written by Gary Whitta and M. Night Shyamalan, however it was later adapted into a science fiction film.
Will, Jada Pinkett Smith, Caleeb Pinkett, and James Lassiter were all involved in producing the picture, which also featured Jaden and Will.
The film didn’t fare much better on Rotten Tomatoes than it did when critics panned it.
The movie has a popcornmeter score of only 36% and a tomatometer score of 12% right now.
And the reception at both the box office and from critics and viewers took its toll on not just the movie, but its performers and also Jaden and Will’s relationship.
In Will’s memoir Will – first released in November 2021 – the actor reflected on After Earth as being ‘an abysmal box office and critical failure’.
The actor continued: “And what was worse was that Jaden took the hit. Fans and the press were absolutely vicious; they said and printed things about Jaden that I refuse to repeat.
“Jaden had faithfully done everything that I’d instructed him to do, and I had coached him into the worst public mauling he’d ever experienced.”
Will explained while the pair ‘never discussed it’, he knew his son ‘felt betrayed’ as well as ‘misled’, and ultimately ‘lost his trust in [Will’s] leadership].
Will continued: “At fifteen years old, when Jaden asked about being an emancipated minor, my heart shattered. He ultimately decided against it, but it sucks to feel like you’ve hurt your kids.”
In the time since, Jaden has made appearances in a number of films and television shows, such as The Get Down (2016) on Netflix and the flicks Skate Kitchen (2018), Life in a Year (2020), and Entergalactic (2022). However, he has still not starred in a film alongside his dad again.