20th Century Fox’s The City That Sailed will star Will Smith and has now picked up Shawn Levy to direct Smith’s latest film since After Earth.
Shawn Levy is currently filming the popular franchise Night at the Museum 3, and helmed Real Steel, which featured Hugh Jackman as a deadbeat dad in a Rock Em’ Sock Em’ robot-film in 2011.
The director has also been a producer on quite a few popular films as of late, including The Internship, The Spectacular Now, and Date Night.
He’s been in the business since ’97 and has been producing and directing some fairly successful films.
Now he’ll get a shot with Will Smith, who hasn’t been as successful lately, in The City That Sailed.
The City That Sailed is being written by Audrey Wells and the film “centers on a father and daughter on the island of Manhattan as it breaks loose and sails across the Atlantic Ocean.” We’re a bit worried that Smith may put his daughter Willow into the co-starring role, but she’s said to have left the unwanted limelight since her breakout song “Whip My Hair.”
Deadline reports that Will Smith has officially signed on for the film, but had been unofficially set to play the father for quite a while. Shawn Levy has just signed on for the film, and has reportedly wanted to work with Will Smith for quite some time.
Smith is also working with 20th Century Fox on another film, Selling Time, which is said to be a supernatural thriller. It’s said that Levy actually dropped the Fantastic Voyage two years ago when Will Smith passed on the role to work with him.
Shawn Levy is currently working on Night at the Museum 3 with Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, and Dan Stevens. The highly profitable franchise has raked in nearly $1 billion at the box office and we predict the third film will be in the $550 million dollar range. The film will start production in London early next year, and will be hitting theaters Christmas Day, 2014.
Will Smith had a major bump in his career this past summer when his latest film After Earth crashed and burned in theaters. The film co-starred Will’s son Jaden, and was directed by famed (or infamous?) director M. Night Shyamalan.
After Earth was anything but a hit. Coming in third place during its opening weekend and totalling only $243 million worldwide, the film was universally panned by critics and had a bloated production budget of $130 million. That might not sound bad initially, but we have to add the film’s promotional costs, which were said to be near $100 million or more.
Will Smith gets to try again with another interesting film with The City That Sailed, and director Shawn Levy will get his chance to work with Smith. We’ll be interested to see how this film turns out, as it seems like a unique story in a world full of sequels.
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