In the film After Earth, released in 2013, Will Smith and his son starred in the leading roles. However, the then 15-year-old Jaden Smith struggled to cope with the film’s failure.
Which movie is it about? A thousand years in the future, humanity has left Earth after severe environmental disasters. They have now found their home on the planet Nova Prime.
General Cypher Raige and his teenage son Kitai get caught in an asteroid storm and have to make an emergency landing on the now uninhabitable Earth. It has become a dangerous place where the entire flora and fauna have evolved to kill humans.
Since Cypher cannot leave the ship due to a leg injury, his son must venture into the jungle alone to retrieve the lost emergency signal device. It is located in the rear of the ship, which has crashed miles away.
Major flop led to disrupted father-son relationship
How hard did it flop? Despite the film grossing over 243 million US dollars internationally during its theatrical release (see Box Office Mojo), it did not resonate well with audiences. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received only 36 out of 100 percent from the cinema audience. The critics were even harsher, giving the film only 12 percent.
On IMDb, the film only scored 4.8 out of 10 possible points.
Among the criticisms was the poor acting performance of Jaden Smith. There were also logical gaps in the story and a weak script.
How did the son deal with it? Jaden also heard this criticism. According to his father Will Smith, the press said things about his son that he didn’t want to repeat:
After Earth was a disastrous failure, both at the box office and with critics. And the worst part was that Jaden had to bear the brunt of it. The fans and the press were absolutely ruthless […] Jaden had done everything I told him to do, and I had led him into the worst public humiliation he had ever experienced.
Will Smith reportedly knew inside that his son felt betrayed. According to him, his son lost trust in his guidance. It felt terrible to have emotionally hurt his child.
There are other things in Will Smith’s life that the actor regrets. He turned down the role of a lifetime and missed a career push from a massive film classic: Will Smith talks about one of the worst decisions of his career: “Why didn’t you make The Matrix?”
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