Will Smith's next; MEN IN BLACK 3 or THE CITY THAT SAILED

According to today's Variety, the 5,000 potential Will Smith starring vehicles developed during the actor's break since "Seven Pounds", has now been whittled down to two choices; "Men in Black 3" and "The City That Sailed", the latter a 20th Century Fox fantasy/adventure. Both projects are in need of a director and want to film this Summer. Etan Cohen ("Tropic Thunder", "Idiocracy") has written the screenplay for the third "Men in Black" which will find Smith's Agent J traveling back in time to meet a younger Agent J, apparently. Tommy Lee Jones won't be involved (I think he's retired from this kind of movie now) and it's previously been rumoured that his "No Country For Old Men" co-star Josh Brolin, would portray J as a younger man. The movie clearly has momentum at Sony who want this out next summer. Recently, Sacha Baron Cohen and "Flight of the Conchord's"Jermaine Clement were competing for the mysterious role of Yaz, presumed to be an alien in the feature. Fox's "City That Sailed" is penned by the talented Andrew Niccol, writer/director of "Gattacca" and Oscar nominated for his "Truman Show" screenplay... It's setup at Smith's Overbook Entertainment. Variety say;

"City that Sailed" revolves around a New York street magician who is unhappily separated from his young daughter. The girl, who moves to London, finds magic candles that make her wishes comes true, with unintended consequences: The island of Manhattan separates from the continent and floats toward England, bringing her dad ever closer.

Originally, the project was setup for Smith's "I Am Legend" director Francis Lawrence to helm before he went off to make "Water for Elephants" with Robert Pattinson, Christina Ricci and Christoph Waltz. One potential enticing prospect for Smith in taking this role would be the opportunity for him to work with his 9 year old actress daughter Willow Smith, who briefly appeared in the flashback scenes in "I Am Legend". His sons Jaden got the go around in "The Pursuit of Happyness", and of course in the Smith produced "Karate Kid". Back in September, I wrote the article "What next for the biggest movie star on the planet?" in reference to the dozen or so projects that screenwriters in Hollywood were tapping away at their computer desks in an attempt to convince Will Smith to pick as his next film.

Those projects bizarrely included sequels to nearly all the big franchises he has previously starred in (including "Hancock 2", "Men in Black 3", "Bad Boys 3", "I Robot 2","I Am Legend 2"), a couple of original tentpoles ("Earth vs. Moon", "The Last Pharaoh") and the Steven Spielberg remake of "Oldboy".

The latter was eventually shot down, but the rest are still being developed as far as I'm aware and we've since heard of a script being put together for an "Independence Day 2" (Yes, yet another franchise reprisal), a strange remake of Alfred Hitchcock's "Suspicion"and an adaptation of the popular novel "Flowers For Algernon". It's partly down to Will Smith's big star status but also his verstality as a marquee performer that he has had such an eclectic set of projects attached to his name during a 1-2 year break. Both "Men In Black 3" and "The City That Sailed" are aimed towards younger audiences than his last run of movies, and well as we've said before about artists (such as Tim Burton) when their kids get to a certain age, there's a desire to start making movies that they can attend the premiere with their daddy, watch at home on DVD every now and again, or even star with him, etc.