Amid the aftermath of “the slap heard around the world,” Academy Award winner Will Smith continues to put his name to upcoming tentpole projects. Now, Smith is looking to join a superhero-esque property, joining forces with Ms. Marvel director and four-time Emmy and two-time Oscar-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy for Brilliance.
Based on the novel by Marcus Sakey, Brilliance will drop audiences into a world where 1% of the world's children were born with powerful gifts. Labeled ‘Brilliants,’ they are carefully tracked by the government who fear how society will deal with superpowered members of the public. And what these ‘Brilliants’ will decide to do with their gifts.
“In Wyoming, a little girl reads people’s darkest secrets by the way they fold their arms,” the official description of the novel reads. “In New York, a man sensing patterns in the stock market racks up $300 billion. In Chicago, a woman can go invisible by being where no one is looking. They’re called "brilliants," and since 1980, one percent of people have been born this way. Nick Cooper is among them; a federal agent, Cooper has gifts rendering him exceptional at hunting terrorists. His latest target may be the most dangerous man alive, a brilliant drenched in blood and intent on provoking civil war. But to catch him, Cooper will have to violate everything he believes in - and betray his own kind.”
Brilliance will mark the feature film directorial debut of Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who is best known for the Oscar-winning documentary shorts Saving Face and A Girl in the River, The Price of Forgiveness and more recently joined the MCU with the Disney+ series Ms. Marvel.
Will Smith Could Star in Brilliance as an Assassin Who Can See Things Before They Happen
Will Smith is currently on board as a producer, and if he does decide to also star, will play Department of Analysis and Response Agent Nick Cooper, who is tasked with hunting down Brilliants who plan to use their abilities for nefarious reasons. According to Deadline, "The agent is himself an abnorm, with a gift for predictive analysis that allows him to see what will happen before it happens and react preemptively. He is also the father of a Brilliant daughter.”
“As he infiltrates a radical group of Brilliants who plan to incite a civil war, he uses his own gifts against his Brilliant enemies, like an assassin who perceives time faster than his opponents,” the report continues. “When Cooper is ordered to hunt down John Smith — the country’s most elusive and most dangerous abnorm — everything Cooper believes in will be called into question. As one of the abnorms he’s hunting tells him, “You can’t stop the future. All you can do is pick a side.”
Brilliance has been described as a passion project for Will Smith and frequent collaborator Akiva Goldsman, with the pair having worked together previously on the likes of I, Robot, I Am Legend, and Hancock.
Following his Oscar win for King Richard, the next big release for Will Smith following the infamous incident at the Academy Awards will be Emancipation from director Antoine Fuqua, which will be reportedly released for 2023's awards season.