Will Smith would have been disastrous in The Matrix and now I want to see it
this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2026
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I was thinking, thank god he turned it down.
Inception, on the other hand - I can’t recall any of the characters, so I don’t know which role he was considering. It’s a perfect Will Smith movie.
If memory serves me right the protagonist in Inception was confused a lot and Wil can pull off confused.
If memory serves me right the protagonist in Inception was confused a lot
Dicarpio's character wasn't confused, you may be thinking of Elliot Page's character, but I wouldn't count that character as the main protagonist.
I barely remember it. I was pretty high at the time.
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Sean Connery turned down both Gandalf in Lord of the Rings and Morpheus in The Matrix because he didn't understand the scripts. He turned down Dumbledore in Harry Potter because it was too fantastical. Then he tried a reverse approach where he accepted the next role he didn't understand, because clearly that was where the money was at. So he accepted Allan Quartermain in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a movie which flopped hard. Then he ragequit the industry and retired.
I love that movie, I thought he did great in it too
Same here. It’s a fun action romp with some interesting characters. I get that it’s not peak cinema but it’s still good.
Some of the CGI in it is insanely good too (the invisible man), Corridor Crew did a react episode or two about it.
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The movie made a decent bit of money, just terrible reviews.
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I'm so glad he skips movies he would have ruined
Strongly agree. As an actor Will Smith always brings some sass to movies. I feel like he would've ruined a few scenes. Especially him teasing Agent Smith unnecessarily.
He slapped a man on national television because he made a joke about his wife. That wasn't even a mean joke, it was just in somewhat bad taste. (He was also laughing at the joke until he saw his wife roll her eyes at it)
He is quite dumb
She's basically his boss tbh. It does not seem like a healthy relationship
He didn't want to have to go home in the same limo with her screaming at him for not defending her in front of the whole world. So he destroyed his Oscar winning night, his reputation, and his career, because he was too afraid of her acting like a psychopath.
And she probably did it anyway.
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Will smiths thing is most similar to dwayne johnson, he wanted to be the LEAD or the most prominent actor and not the side character
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He also turned down Django Unchained. Will Smith is just shit at picking roles.
Thank God. He would have ruined it.
Will can't help but be himself in a movie. Instead of... You know... "Act".
I don't want the alternate Django Unchained where Will Smith starts rappin and getting jiggy with it.
he's also extremely dedicated to maintaining his brand. turning down Django Unchained does feel like a HUGE wiff to me though. Django is basically Deadshot if Deadshot lived in the Antebellum South (presumably after the California gold rush since he spends some time in Colorado). maybe Tarantino films can't ever fit the Will Smith toxic positivity brand?
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Maybe Will Smith actually tried to read Baudrillard to get a grip on some basic concepts behind the movie. However, english translations of Baudrillard are fucking awful and borderline unreadable (common issue with scary french philosophers for some reason) so he gave up. Also - fuck Will Smith. Denzel should've starred in The Enemy of the State.
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maybe he just didnt get the point of the story or something. I dont think you can act well if you cant get into the character
In general, will smith has always been an action type of guy in his roles, but to do that he always needed to have clear motivations. I guess a nested dream in a dream isn't functional for this type of actor.
Well, and the fact that back then these movies were almost a gamble you know, like now we treat them as cult classics, but than they were absolutely new and nobody know what they were about.
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Nah sure, giant mecha-spider in the Wild West is more straightforward I guess.
(Speaking of which Kevin Smith did a ride of a story about a superman movie that never got made, which ties into that very same Mecha-spider)
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Some people are not set up for science fiction or fantasy at all. Will Smith is a borderline case, though.
I think with The Matrix specifically it has to do with the physicality. Late 90s Will Smith was in shape and could do big, bombastic action, but I can't imagine him doing precise martial arts moves without it looking like a comedy.
Thats what we all said about Keanu. He was a joke at the time. Or rather basically type cast. Even in the more serious roles he was pretty goofy. Speed comes to mind. The Matrix gave me and many i know a bigger liking for the young silly Ted Logan.
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Independence Day is my favourite movie with Will Smith, my second favourite is the one where he is fighting Zombies can't recall the name. He was for a good long while the most bankable actor of colour in Hollywood ahead of Danzel and Morgan Freeman. TENET would have been a different movie with him alongside Robert Pattinson. The sad thing is how he raised his children to become part of the publicity machine instead of seeking out academic excellence. He fed them directly into the maw of the media machine where the last name and nepotism rule the roost. Sad really I am sure some of that can be laid at the feet of his practice of scientology.
2 things:
- I just recently learned that the "monsters" in I Am Legend were not zombies, they were vampires and they were supposed to be fully sentient... The movie adaptation missed the mark so much it is basically a completely different and unrecognizable story from the book.
- why is there a tag or something next to your name that says "Bot"? Is that supposed to be there? Is that something buggy happening in the front end I am using?
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From the interview I heard they pitched the matrix terribly.
Back in the late 90s, I have no idea how you'd pitch that any other way. It's a miracle that movie got made.
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