In 1999, filmmaker Barry Sonnenfeld came out with the Western flick Wild Wild West starring Will Smith and Salma Hayek. Unfortunately, the film didn’t quite impress the audience and Wild Wild West ended up becoming a commercial failure with $222 million at the box office. Critics weren’t too kind to the film either, given it a devastating 16% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
And thus, Wild Wild West is considered to be one of the biggest failures of Will Smith’s career and he agrees. However, despite showing his resentment toward Wild Wild West, there is another film that Will Smith considers to be the worst of them all – his 2013 sci-fi film with his son Jaden Smith, After Earth.
After Earth Was Too Painful For Will Smith
If you thought the Tomatometer couldn’t go lower than 16% on a Will Smith film, you were wrong. The M. Night Shyamalan-directed After Earth is the lowest-rated film of Smith’s career with a score of 12% on Rotten Tomatoes. The critics were absolutely unleashing their wrath on the post-apocalyptic drama. It was also a commercial failure as it could only make $243 million at the box office.
As for Smith, he is not defending the disaster either. In an interview with Esquire, he calls it the “most painful film” of his career. When asked if After Earth was actually worse than Wild Wild West, the actor stated that the former was way worse than the latter as he had unfortunately roped in his son, Jaden Smith, for the film.
He recalled how Aunt Viv’s line, “Don’t let success go to your head and failure go to your heart,” became an important lesson for him thanks to After Earth.
“That was a valuable lesson for me a few years ago with After Earth. That was the most painful failure in my career. Wild Wild West was less painful than After Earth because my son was involved in After Earth and I led him into it. That was excruciating. What I learned from that failure is how you win. I got reinvigorated after the failure of After Earth. I stopped working for a year and a half.”
Apart from the box office failure and the negative reviews from critics, the cast and crew of After Earth was also humiliated when the film received six nominations at the Golden Raspberry Awards, an award function specifically created to “honor” the worst of the entertainment industry.
Will Smith Believes He Failed Jaden Smith
In his memoir, Smith got absolutely candid as he opened up about the after effect of After Earth on his son, who was about fifteen at the time of the film’s release. The Emancipation actor wrote that while the movie was a failure, his son did not deserve the “public mauling” he received. Smith took the entire blame on himself stating that Jaden only did what he was asked to.
“After Earth was an abysmal box office and critical failure. And what was worse was that Jaden took the hit. Fans and the press were absolutely vicious; they said and printed things about Jaden that I refuse to repeat. Jaden had faithfully done everything that I’d instructed him to do, and I had coached him into the worst public mauling he’d ever experienced.”
Smith went on to state that while the father-son duo never sat down to discuss the backlash, he knew that his son lost faith in his leadership. He even added that Jaden once thought about becoming an emancipated minor amidst all of this.
“We never discussed it, but I know he felt betrayed. He felt misled, and he lost trust in my leadership. At 15 years old, when Jaden asked about being an emancipated minor, my heart shattered. He ultimately decided against it, but it sucks to feel like you’ve hurt your kids.”
The Karate Kid actor won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor while his father took one home for Worst Supporting Actor. They even won the award for the Worst Screen Combo. Unfortunately, the negativity is part of the business, isn’t it?
You can stream After Earth on Netflix and Wild Wild West on Max.
Source: Esquire
