A week before the Oscars, filmmaker David Leitch (“Bullet Train,” “Deadpool 2,” “Hobbs & Shaw”) withdrew as director of the Will Smith-led Netflix feature “Fast and Loose”.
The reason was Netflix was competing with Universal for Leitch’s next project with the latter winning out. Leitch will now be directing the Ryan Gosling-led “Fall Guy” at Universal when it goes into production this August.
Once the decision was made, Netflix put out a call for another director to take over “Fast and Loose”. In the wake of Smith’s slapping of Chris Rock on the Oscars stage last weekend however, Netflix has reportedly now moved that project to the back burner according to THR.
The film was to tell the story of a crime boss with amnesia who discovers that he has led a double identity as a wealthy kingpin and a broke CIA agent. It is now unclear if the project will still move forward with another star and director, or if it’ll remain stalled in development.
That’s not all though as sources for the trade also indicates Sony Pictures has hit the pause button on a fourth “Bad Boys” movie which had been in active development with a good chunk of the script worked on.
Smith resigned as a member of the Academy of the Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences on Friday, but an inquiry will still go forward regardless The actor potentially faces penalties and punitive measures from both the Academy and the Screen Actors Guild in the coming weeks.
Smith has already shot the Apple TV+ drama “Emancipation” which is in post-production. The streamer had planned a 2022 debut but the release is undated for now. How all the controversy will impact further out projects, for now it is wait and see.
