Will Smith’s Bright 2 canned, Nat Geo series delayed

A highly anticipated Netflix Will Smith movie has been given the flick while another of the actor’s series has been delayed.

The fallout from Will Smith’s violent assault of Chris Rock on the Oscars stage continues as two more of his upcoming projects hit the skid.

One – National Geographic series Pole to Pole – has been delayed for several months while another – Netflix movie Bright 2 – has reportedly been canned altogether.

Bright 2 was the long mooted sequel to David Ayer’s $90 million fantasy movie. It starred Will Smith as a human police officer to Joel Edgerton’s orc cop in a world where centaurs, elves and magic exist, in a story involving a wand and a plot to stop the resurrection of a Dark Lord.

Despite being smashed by critics – Indiewire condemned it as the worst movie of the year – who rounded on Bright for its poor plotting, uninspired action sequences and total lack of character development, Bright was popular with Netflix audiences.

Eleven million accounts watched the movie in the first three days, according to Nielsen data at the time. Within a month, a sequel had been greenlit with Ayer, Smith and Edgerton expected to return. Original screenwriter Max Landis, who had been embroiled in abuse allegations, was not to return.

The sequel was supposed to start production in 2018 but was continually delayed due to scheduling conflicts and eventually other directors were being lined up to take over from Ayer who had moved onto other projects.

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Will Smith and Joel Edgerton in Bright. Supplied by Netflix.

Bloomberg reporter Lucas Shaw, who revealed the news of Bright 2’s demise, claimed the cancellation is not directly due to the Oscars incident. Netflix has axed a string of in-production titles in the wake of its loss of 200,000 subscribers in the first three months of this year.

Bloomberg also reported Pole to Pole, which was due to start shooting in three weeks, would be delayed until the northern hemisphere autumn. The show will follow Smith as he visits the north and south poles.

Smith has made two other series with National Geographic – Welcome to Earth and One Strange Rock – which are available on streaming platform Disney+.

In the month since Smith slapped Rock during the live global broadcast of the Oscars ceremony, the actor and producer has had his fortunes reversed. Netflix dropped another Smith production Fast & Loose while his already filmed movie Emancipation has no release date.

Smith resigned his membership of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organisation which mounts the Oscars, which also banned the actor from any Academy events for 10 years.

Earlier this past weekend, Smith was photographed at a private airfield in Mumbai, his first appearance since the incident.