Will Smith Is Returning To Netflix For Wild New Thriller With Deadpool 2 Director

Will smith holding a gun in Bad Boys For Life
(Image credit: (Columbia))

Will Smith has been an action-star extraordinaire for over 25 years, and he plans to get back into the groove of it for Netflix with a new movie called Fast & Loose. The 52-year-old actor has just signed on to the movie set to come to the streaming service following his previous work with Netflix on 2017's Bright. And why not? Between Ryan Reynolds, Mark Wahlberg and Chris Hemsworth’s success with straight-to-streaming action films, it sounds like a no-brainer.

Fast & Loose is set to be an action thriller about a man who wakes up in Tijuana one morning with no memories to call his own. Will Smith will play the mysterious man who pieces together two lives he lived before: one as a crime kingpin and the other as an undercover CIA agent. The problem becomes figuring out which one is his true identity. The Netflix film is set to be directed by Deadpool 2 director David Leitch, per Deadline.

David Leitch has been attached to Fast & Loose since spring of last year, when his producing company 87North picked up the script written by Jon and Erich Hoeber, who have also written RED, Battleship, The Meg and My Spy. With Will Smith on board, the actor will also be producing the movie under his Westbrook Studios label.

If you’re looking for an upcoming action movie to be excited about, both Will Smith and David Leitch's resumes should do the trick considering the talent they’ve both shown for the genre in the past. Leitch is a stunt double-turned-director, who has been behind John Wick, Atomic Blonde and Fast & Furious spinoff Hobbs & Shaw. He recently filmed Bullet Train with Brad Pitt and a massive cast also including Michael Shannon, Lady Gaga and Sandra Bullock.

In the last five years, Will Smith has been hitting the gas pedal on more action projects and it’ll be great to see what he brings to Fast & Loose. Smith’s last big film was Bad Boys For Life at the top of 2020, which became a huge box office hit. After a year off and the pandemic, Smith revealed on his social media that he has gained weight and is in the process of getting in the best shape of his life to “feel better.” This might be the perfect project for him to show off his health progress once he steps on set.

Until Fast & Loose gets going, Will Smith is set to star in King Richard this fall, which will see him portraying the father of tennis champs Serena and Venus Williams. Smith is also going to star and produce in a remake of Planes, Trains and Automobiles with Kevin Hart, along with a thriller about a runaway slave called Emancipation. There’s a ton to be stoked about regarding Will Smith’s upcoming movies, and the stack just got thicker with Fast & Loose!

Sarah El-Mahmoud
Staff Writer

Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.