The Oscar winner posted a new video message — one of his first public statements since the Oscars — to his Instagram on Friday.
By Justina Terhember
Will Smith says “there is no part of me that thinks that was the right way to behave in that moment” when explaining his decision to slap Chris Rock during the March 2022 Oscars ceremony. In a new Instagram video (below), the King Richard star answers a series of questions about that night, offering up yet another apology to Rock while also discussing the impact it had on Rock’s family; whether he was responding to his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith’s eye roll when he took the stage; the effects his actions had on the night’s other nominees and winners; and more.
“I was fogged out by that point,” Smith says, explaining why it took so long to offer Rock an apology. “It’s all fuzzy. I’ve reached out to Chris, and the message that came back is that he’s not ready to talk. And when he is, he will reach out.”
Smith goes on to address Rock directly, saying he’s “here whenever you’re ready to talk,” before offering up an apology to Rock’s mother and brother Tony Rock.
“That was one of the things about that moment I just didn’t realize,” Smith reflects. “I wasn’t thinking about how many people got hurt in that moment. So, I want to apologize to Chris’ mother. I want to apologize to Chris’ family — specifically, Tony Rock. We had a great relationship. You know, Tony Rock was my man, and this is probably irreparable.”
Smith also answered a question about whether his reaction was in response to his wife’s eye roll following Rock’s joke about her baldness, which many noted may have been a sensitive topic due to her alopecia. “I made a choice on my own, from my own experiences, from my history with Chris. Jada had nothing to do [with it],” Smith said, before acknowledging the “heat” his wife and kids have taken.
Toward the end of the video, Smith acknowledges how his actions impacted his fellow nominees. “It really breaks my heart to have stolen and tarnished your moment,” Smith says, addressing Questlove, who took the Oscars stage right after the incident to accept the award for best feature documentary for his project Summer of Soul. “Sorry isn’t really sufficient.”
This is the third apology in some form that Smith has offered up since the Oscars 2022 incident, in which the best actor winner took to the Dolby Theatre stage and slapped comedian Rock after he made an unscripted G.I. Jane joke about Pinkett Smith’s baldness while presenting the award for best documentary feature.
Since then, Smith announced he was resigning from the Academy and has been banned from appearing at Academy events for 10 years. He is still, however, eligible for future Oscar nominations and wins, and will retain the Oscar that he won during the 2022 ceremony.
Several of Smith’s upcoming projects are seemingly in limbo. Fast and Loose, which centers on a crime boss who loses his memory, had previously lost its director ahead of the Oscars incident, but according to sources, was quietly put on the back burner by Netflix. Sony’s Bad Boys 4, also in active development during the Oscars season, was also paused.
Following the success of “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” Will Smith is teaming up again with Sony Pictures for the sci-fi thriller “Resistor,” based on Daniel Suarez’s 2014 novel “Influx.” The movie hails from Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, Steve Tisch and Tony Shaw of Escape Artists, which has been developing the project for years alongside Smith and Jon Mone through Westbrook. Heather Washington is executive producing, and Dave Wilson is a producer.
“Bullet Train” scribe Zak Olkewicz wrote the first draft, while Eric Singer (“Top Gun: Maverick,” “American Hustle”) penned the latest draft. The film is in development and currently in search of a director.
The plot of the film is under wraps, but “Influx” takes place in a dystopian society in which the government uses shady tactics to prevent technological advancement.
Smith’s latest effort with Sony Pictures, the fourth installment in the action comedy franchise “Bad Boys,” has collected $113 million and counting at the domestic box office, and $215.5 million globally. The franchise recently crossed the $1 billion mark at the global box office.
Those box office results marked a big win for Smith, whose career was in jeopardy after he slapped Chris Rock onstage at the Oscars. In fact, “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” nods to that infamous moment with a scene in which Martin Lawrence repeatedly slaps Smith in the face to get him back into his “bad boy” self.
The Blade reboot has gotten more bad news. After multiple production delays and setbacks, the film has now lost its director… again.
Filmmaker Yann Demange is no longer set to direct the Blade reboot for Marvel Studios. It’s reported that the parting was amicable, but no further clarification was offered as to why Demange departed the project. He becomes the second director to leave the film after first signing on, following the previous departure of Bassim Tariq. Tariq left the project in 2022 after signing on in 2021, and Demange’s hiring was announced in November 2022.
The new Blade movie has similarly been juggling out writers and reportedly undergoing several rewrites. Stacy Osei-Kuffour was brought on board to write a draft in 2021, while it was reported upon Demange’s hiring the following year that Michael Starrbury would rewrite the script. True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto and Logan co-writer Michael Green have also been attached to contribute to the screenplay at different points. The latest word is that Eric Pearson, who worked on Black Widow and the upcoming films Thunderbolts and The Fantastic Four, is writing the newest draft of Blade.
Reportedly, the Blade reboot is planned to start filming in Fall 2024 to make a November 2025 release date. There’s still time for a new director to be hired in order to continue on with the planned production schedule. With that noted, it’s also possible the movie could end up getting pushed back once again. There were previous rumors that star Mahershala Ali nearly walked away from the project over frustrations with the screenwriting process, though he publicly teased in December 2023 that he was happy with the current direction of the story.
“We’re working on it,” Ali told Entertainment Weekly. “That’s the best I could tell you. I’m really encouraged with the direction of the project. I think we’ll be back at it relatively soon… I’m sincerely encouraged in terms of where things are at and who’s on board and who’s leading the way as far as the writing of the script and the directing and all that. So that’s the extent of what I can tell you.”
The Blade reboot was officially announced by Marvel Studios at San Diego Comic-Con in 2019. In July, it will mark five full years since the movie was first announced. Ali later made his debut in the role with a voice cameo in the 2021 film Eternals.
Blade is scheduled to be released in theaters on Nov. 7, 2025.
Director Shawn Levy may be sticking around the Marvel Cinematic Universe a bit longer. After he helmed this summer’s “Deadpool and Wolverine,” the director is being eyed by Marvel — though it’s in very early stages — to direct the next “Avengers” movie.
Destin Daniel Cretton, who made 2021’s Marvel movie “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” was previously supposed to direct the fifth “Avengers” movie, but he backed out in November 2023. That movie, which is scheduled for May 1, 2026, also does not currently have a title. It was originally named “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty,” but lost that title after Jonathan Majors, who was cast as the time-traveling villain Kang the Conqueror, was convicted of assaulting and harassing his ex-girlfriend. After this untitled “Avengers” movie, the next will be “Avengers: Secret Wars,” set for May 7, 2027.
Levy’s “Deadpool and Wolverine,” which brings together the iconic superheroes played by Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman in Fox’s X-Men universe, will hit theaters on July 26. It will be the first “Deadpool” movie released by Disney after it acquired 20th Century Fox, and it marks the first R-rated MCU movie. Not to mention, it’ll officially bring Fox’s mutants into the proper MCU timeline, which fans have been clamoring for since the acquisition.
Levy previously worked with Reynolds on the 2022 family adventure movie “The Adam Project” (which included Marvel actors Mark Ruffalo and Zoe Saldaña) and 2021’s “Free Guy” (which had Easter eggs nodding to Captain America and Hulk). He’s also worked with Jackman on the 2011 action movie “Real Steel.”
