Will Smith hasn’t had much luck lately when it comes to genre movies but things may turn around with ‘Bright.’
Today in Hall H at SDCC, Smith and director David Ayers were on hand to introduce footage from the Netflix film. Ayers, who last film with Smith was the lackluster superhero team up film ‘Suicide Squad,’ is doing something a little different with Netflix – making a genre movie where the creative output is not hampered by a big studio executive. If there was any doubt this film is a passion project for Ayers, his words introducing the trailer seem to say it all:
“This ain’t no bull shit PG-13 studio movie. This is real shit.”
The film has been dubbed as “a contemporary cop thriller, but with fantastical elements” with Smith’s human counterpart in the film being not too happy to have to be paired up with an Orc. As Smith jokingly says:
“It was really great to be an African-American police officer who found someone to be racist against.”
Based on a script by Max Landis (with some rewrites by Ayers), ‘Bright’ is set in a world where humans, orcs, elves, and fairies have been coexisting since the beginning of time. The film follows two cops, the human Scott Ward (Smith) and his Orc partner Nick Jacoby (Joel Edgerton) who find themselves on a quest to retrieve a mysterious ancient relic. As with all things great and powerful, Ward and Jacoby aren’t the only two beings after this relic and the fate of the world and their future is dependent on whether they are successful in their quest.
‘Bright’ is set to be a very different kind of film which Ayers is very excited about. In an interview about the film earlier in the year, the helmer exclaimed:
“This thing’s gonna be hard-R, it’s gonna be very realistic, psychologically realistic, which I think lets us push the fantastical elements even more. It’s gonna be grounded and real and I think it’s gonna straddle a lot of genres. It’s gonna be one for the books.”
Take a look at the trailer below and let us know what you think. ‘Bright’ will be released on the Netflix platform on December 22 with the possibility of a limited theatrical release later this year. Would you see it if it screened in theaters? Let us know in the comments below!
