Netflix, Sony, Apple+ Put A Hold On Will Smith's Film Projects Following The Slap

The Will Smith slap has been gaining steam and criticism over the days since the 94th Academy Awards. The Academy has stated that it will be taking action against Smith since his actions were in violation of the Academy's Standards of Conduct. The consequences of his actions may include "suspension, expulsion, or other sanctions permitted by the Bylaws and Standards of Conduct," stated the Academy in a statement. 

Now, even projects Smith has been involved in are also being halted following the nature of the incident. Major players like Netflix and Sony are hitting pause on his films. 

Netflix recently moved the film project Fast and Loose to the back burner. In addition to the slapping incident, Netflix also lost the film director, David Leitch, to Universal. Leitch had dropped out of the project just a week before the Oscars to work on another film project. He has currently moved onto Fall Guy, starring Ryan Gosling, for Universal, which is supposed to start production in August, reported The Hollywood Reporter. Netflix had sent out an urgent call for other directors to take over the project in the wake of his departure but has now decided that it would be better to put the project on hold altogether.

Fast and Loose was supposed to be a story of a crime boss who loses his memory after an attack. He then pieces clues together and discovers that he has led a double identity as a wealthy kingpin and a broke CIA agent. Currently, it is unclear whether Netflix will be up for taking up the project at all or whether they will wait to pick it back up again. 

Additionally, Sony has also halted work on the much-anticipated Bad Boys 4. The buddy cop action comedy film that was first released in 1995 starred Smith and Martin Lawrence as two detectives in the Miami Police Department, Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett. It went on to have two more sequels with a fourth in the work since 2020. Smith and Lawrence were reprising their roles with Chris Bremner as a screenwriter. The future of the film is now also up in the air.

Smith also starred in Apple+’s slave escape drama Emancipation which is already in post-production. The film was supposed to be released this year. But after the controversial turn of events, the release date has not been confirmed. The filming of the movie had halted last year after several members of the crew had tested positive for COVID, as reported by Deadline. Smith played Peter, the slave whose story inspired the movie. Peter fled from a plantation in Louisiana after he was whipped within an inch of his life, the haunting photo of his bare back, scarred from the brutal whipping came to be known as "The Scourged Back". Outwitting cold-blooded hunters and braving the swamps of Louisiana he journeys north where he the Union Army.