Will Smith prepares phase two of his comeback with Sugar Bandits

Will Smith wants to go where everybody knows your name.

Per Deadline, Smith is attached to co-star in Sugar Bandits, a Boston-based action thriller from the author of The Town. The movie follows an ex-Special Forces soldier who joins up with a crew of vigilantes to take down Boston’s drug trade. Deadline writes that Smith isn’t expected to lead the picture but rather co-star, presumably as someone who cannot go one minute without mentioning “Dunkies.” As exciting as it is to hear that Smith might be parking the car in Harvard Yard and sporting a wicked New England accent, it’s hard to tell if audiences are ready to accept him back.

Next month marks the second anniversary of the most bizarre and fascinating moment in Oscar history: The Slap. Will Smith smacking Chris Rock and winning Best Actor in quick succession was among the most talked about moments of the year and something we’ll probably be discussing until the end of time. It’s not every day that an actual fight between millionaire co-workers happens on live TV.

The Slap, coupled with the unconventional marriage entanglements of
Smith and wife Jada Pinkett, tanked Smith’s carefully orchestrated
image. “Will Smith don’t gotta cuss in his raps to sell records,” Eminem
rapped in 2000, unable to comprehend a world where Will Smith isn’t the
most family-friendly artist in America. With one swift swing of the palm, he undid all that. Since March 2022, the Will Smith camp has been pretty quiet as Jada Pinkett continued bringing folks to The Red Table and revealing even more about their marriage than anyone asked. (Seriously, we have heard enough.) Smith staged a small comeback later in late 2022 with the slavery drama Emancipation, the press tour for which doubled as an apology road show.

Smith currently has Bad Boy 4 in the can and, hopefully, regrets that they wasted Bad Boys For Life on the third movie. That’s scheduled for a June 14 release, so we’ll see if audiences are still up for more of the Willennium.