Will 'Gemini Man' Find An Audience?

Statistically speaking, it doesn’t look too promising for Smith’s latest film Gemini Man to perform well at the box office. Disregarding his franchise titles and rebooted work, Will Smith has had some difficulty at the domestic box office in the past decade. His last film Collateral Beauty was a critical and commercial failure pulling in $31 million domestically on a $36 million budget. Despite being nominated for a Golden Globe, Smith’s Concussion earned about $34 million at the domestic box office on a slightly higher $35 million budget. Focus, a standalone project where Smith plays a con-man alongside then rising star Margot Robbie, would have been an enormous commercial flop if it weren’t for it's worldwide gross which accounted for nearly 90% of its total box office haul. Back in 2013, M. Night Shyamalan's highly ambitious science-fiction/adventure flick After Earth barely made double its budget at the worldwide box office despite housing both Will and Jaden Smith—the latter of which was still quite popular from his role in the rebooted Karate Kid.

Chances are Smith’s latest film will join the commercial flops which dominate the icon’s 2010s filmography. Forbes projects a possible $30 million opening for it, but this figure is looking less likely as The Joker and Jennifer Lopez’s Hustlers continue to dominate the box office. Gemini Man also sees a return of acclaimed Oscar-winning director Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain, and Life of Pi). Like Smith, Lee’s later work hasn’t had the best critical and commercial reception. Lee’s last film Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk opened to a wide-release a week after its premiere at around 1,700 theaters and only grossed $30 million worldwide hardly matching its estimated $40 million budget.

Gemini Man hopes to pull in audiences seemingly through its featured new technology which has completely recreated a 23-year old Will Smith through CGI. The now 51-year old Smith and his younger CG counterpart will be engaged in extensive action sequences, trade blows with one another and engage in conversation. But Gemini Man won’t be the only film coming out this year with de-aging technology. Martin Scoreses’s The Irishman will see actor Robert DeNiro and co. de-aged across several decades when it releases later this year in theaters and on Netflix. Weta, the special effects company behind Gemini Man, designed a stunning 1982 recreation of actress Sean Young in Blade Runner 2049. The late Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher were also completely remodeled by Industrial Light & Magic in Star Wars: Rogue One as well.  

While game-changing, Gemini Man stands alongside a few popular films in recent memory, and some still to come, which play quite a bit with de-aging technology. The intrigue of seeing two versions of Smith on screen may not be enough pull for the film’s theatrical release.

If Smith and Lee’s film has any chance at the box office, it will most likely be due to global returns where the actor’s domestic flops seem to thrive. 

BOX OFFICE ROUNDUP: Hustlers sits behind It:Chapter 2 and Joker as the Fall’s third highest grossing film. The all-female ensemble box office smash has grossed $112,309,062 off a modest $20 million budget.