In the lead up to the release of "Django Unchained," director Quentin Tarantino revealed that he considered quite a few names before settling on Jamie Foxx. Idris Elba, Chris Tucker, Terrence Howard, M[ichael] K. Williams, and Tyrese. were among those mentions, but the biggest one of all is Will Smith. In fact, the former Fresh Prince was one of the first names linked to the movie, but things didn’t work out.
"I came really close, it was one of the most amazing screenplays I had ever seen… I just couldn’t sit with him and get through the issues, so I didn’t want to hold him up," Smith said in June 2012, going on to share on of his initial concerns in March 2013: "Django wasn’t the lead, so it was like, I need to be the lead. The other character [Christoph Waltz‘s Oscar-winning King Schultze] was the lead! I was like ‘No, Quentin, please, I need to kill the bad guy!"
However, in a new roundtable talk with THR, Smith reveals another reason he didn’t gel with the material — it needed more romance. "We talked, we met, we sat for hours and hours about it," he said about his conversations with Tarantino. "I wanted to make that movie so badly, but I felt the only way was, it had to be a love story, not a vengeance story. I don’t believe in violence as the reaction to violence. So when I’m looking at that, it’s like: ‘No, no, no. It has to be for love.’ We can’t look at what happens in Paris [the terrorist attacks] and want to f— somebody up for that. Violence begets violence. So I just couldn’t connect to violence being the answer. Love had to be the answer."
What Smith is proposing is more or less an entirely different movie, so it’s easy to why he and Tarantino couldn’t get on the same page.
We’ll see if they find something else to work on down the line, but I would imagine that even if Smith got the script for "The Hateful Eight," he probably realized there wasn’t a love story in there based on the title alone.
A love story between Django and Schultz? That might have worked.
Will Smith is a lover, not a fightr. He also turned down the role of Neo from The Matrix, to make Wild Wild West and its memorable title song. Can\’t blame a man from following his heart.
Okay, will when you rescued the girl in Bad Boys did you kill the bad guys or made to them??
Awww! Poor babies. You guys are nothing but a bunch of cry babies. Will Smith is STILL NUMBER ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You guys are a bunch of no bodies with BAD TASTE!
"Django wasn\’t the lead, so it was like, I need to be the lead. The other character [Christoph Waltz\’s Oscar-winning King Schultze] was the lead!"
self-centered much?
Whew! Glad that didn\’t work out. Now I know why Ive never been excited by him as an actor.
He has bad taste. He said yes to "after earth", he even produced tha pice of sh*t, but he said no to a tarantino movie!! after earth took a lot of his star power away
That\’s so pretentious. why he does all the violent action movies for?
Thank goodness Tarantino has some taste.