By the time “Men In Black 3” rolls around in May 2012, Will Smith will have been away from screens for three and a half years, a very long absence for an actor who, despite his under-performance in the truly horrible “Seven Pounds,” still ranks among the biggest movie stars on the planet. That’s not to say that he’s been quiet. His Overbrook Entertainment banner produced this summer’s sleeper hit “The Karate Kid,” starring his son Jaden, and IMDB currently has him linked to 30 projects in development (at least 99% of which will never happen, obviously).
Now one more can be added, and it looks like a return to the serious fare of “Ali” and “The Pursuit of Happyness.” Overbrook are moving ahead on development of an untitled biopic of Dr. S. Allen Counter, a professor of neurophysiology and scientific explorer. Counter’s work includes research on the descendants of African slaves in the Surinamese rainforest (resulting in a documentary called “I Shall Moulder Before I Shall Be Taken”), discovering a group of people in the Andes descended from Africans, and finding the children of North Pole explorers Robert E. Peary and Matthew Henson.
He’s clearly an extraordinary man, and Smith has a personal connection to him, having worked with Counter on various charity work, including Haiti earthquake relief. It’s easy to forget with all his tentpole work, but Smith can be an excellent actor (we still think his performance in “Ali” is undervalued, despite his Oscar nomination), and this sounds like it could be a good role for him. He’s not officially attached as an actor to the project, but if the script by Farhad Safinia (“Apocalypto”) comes in and he likes it, don’t be surprised if Smith wants to get in front of the camera on this one. [Variety]
