Will Smith to Star in Paramount's Upcoming Production of Action-Thriller ‘Bounty’
Will Smith is attached to star in Paramount Pictures upcoming action crime thriller Bounty, according to an exclusive by The Hollywood Reporter. Smith is also set to produce the project through his Overbrook Entertainment alongside Madhouse Entertainment's Adam Kolbrenner. There is no announced timetable yet for the production of the film.
According to the speculative screenplay written by Sascha Penn, the film will be set in Boston and will follow the story of a man who escapes prison after he's wrongly convicted of murder. As he struggles to prove his innocence, the dead man's widow puts out on national television a $10 million bounty on his head, dead or alive, making his task all the more harder.
Deadline reports that it was Alana Mayo who brought Penn's spec script for Bounty to the attention of Paramount's president of production Marc Evans. Penn is known for writing the remake of Idolmaker for MGM with Justin Timberlake starring and Craig Brewer directing, the 5 Alarm for Lionsgate with Jeff Chan attached to direct, and The Ditch for Warner Bros. with Madhouse producing.
Smith will be seen in Warner Bros.' Focus which will be hitting theaters on February 27. His next upcoming projects include Columbia Pictures' football drama Concussion which will come out on Christmas Day and Warner Bros.' Suicide Squad, in which he'll play Deadshot.
Regarding his role in in the highly anticipated big screen adaptation of DC Comics' Suicide Squad, Smith says he still has work to do on his Deadshot character. He told IGN: "I haven't yet explored the psychology enough of Deadshot - somebody who can take money to kill people, how he justifies that for himself. But in my life in general and in my career, I'm pushing more towards those kinds of questions. I guess I like the concept of dubious morals. I always like to play in that area. What was interesting for me with Focus, now, is that in my life my journey is around vulnerability and authenticity. So to have a guy who has just decided to lie... it was really interesting to test the boundaries of how wide open and how authentic I can be in real life by exploring the other side of a character."