Will Smith’s Oscars slap may have happened almost a month ago, but that doesn’t mean any of the drama surrounding it has died down. Today (April 22), news circulated that two of the award-winning actor’s projects took a hit.
Smith was scheduled to appear on a National Geographic series that would feature the actor as the host, but that project has since been delayed. “Pole to Pole,” as it’s titled, was to show Smith navigating nature from the South Pole to the North Pole. Sources say this report comes from Bloomberg.
The news may be a little painful as Smith is no stranger to the NatGeo family. The actor has previously worked with the network for three other projects, including “Welcome to Earth” in 2021 and “One Strange Rock” in 2018.
Production was to begin in a few weeks, but executives have now pushed it back to the fall.
Reports also show that Netflix has decided to cancel the upcoming movie Bright 2. The film would have been a follow-up to the 2017 movie Bright which featured Smith as Daryl Ward. His character was an LAPD detective in an alternate version of Los Angeles, where humans coexist with multiple mythical creatures.
Sources close to the situation say the cancellation is “unrelated” to the slap.
At the beginning of the month (April 1), Smith resigned from The Academy of Motion Pictures. One week later, The Academy banned him from attending for 10 years.
Smith has since apologized for his actions on more than one occasion.
On April 19, Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith released the trailer for her Facebook Watch series “Red Table Talk.” Fans were eager to see if the family would use their platform to discuss the controversy around the topic, however, there was no mention in sight in the preview.
Pinkett Smith later said that her family was “focusing on deep heeling” and said a discussion would happen “when the time calls.”