2011-12 Season Network Rankings: Fox Still On Top But Down, … 
HLN Set To Air Daytime Emmy Awards 
Grant Bowler Cast As Richard Burton Opposite Lindsay Lohan … 
UPDATE: Dish Network And Broadcasters Ask Courts To Decide … 
Cannes Surprise Screening: Change Of Plans On Juan Antonio … 
Kevin Hart In Talks To Join Kevin James In ‘Valet … 
Anthony Hopkins Up For ‘Red 2′ Villain; Can … 
Cannes Conflicted Over ‘The Paperboy’ As … 
RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘American Idol’ Posts … 
Ghost Of 2004 Hovers Over L.A. Screenings As Int’l … 
On The Road To Awards Season? Kerouac Book Finally Makes It … 
Michael Bay’s Name Pushed Paramount To Settle Injured … 
Several More New Series In Recasting Mode; Returning Ones … 
‘G.I. Joe: Retaliation’ Moving To March 2013 To … 
Directors Fortnight Says It Must “Police … 
‘Chronicle’ Helmer Josh Trank Takes On … 
Will ‘Pan Am’ Take Flight With Amazon? 
TOLDJA! ICM Management Buyout Complete 
DESPERATE: HuffPo & Oprah Team Up Now 
Hot Trailer: ‘The Great Gatsby’ 
How Did Women Pilot Writers Fare For 2012? 
EXCLUSIVE: Will Smith has attached himself to star in and produce The Legend Of Cain, an epic re-telling of the Biblical sibling tale, this time with a vampiric twist. Smith will play Cain, the original Bad Boy, and he will produce with Overbrook Entertainment partners Jada Pinkett Smith (his wife), James Lassiter, and Ken Stovitz. The script was written by Caleeb Pinkett and Dan Knauf, with Andrea Berloff revising. No studio or director yet for the Overbrook project. The production company is coming off The Karate Kid, which has so far grossed more that. $210 million worldwide. Smith is currently promoting that film internationally and in August he begins filming Men In Black 3.
Now Will Smith Wants To Play Bad Boy Cain (…With Vampiric Twist)
-
Marketplace
-
-
News/Opinion Poll
Loading ...Box Office Poll
Loading ...
- 'Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2': Edward, Bella And Jacob Character Posters (PHOTOS)
- Russell Crowe, Elvis Costello, Sing Elvis Presley And Johnny Cash In London
- 'Men In Black 3' Unscripted: Josh Brolin Doesn't Know Will Smith's Song 'Summertime'
- Zero Dark Thirty: Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Given Secret Access By CIA For bin Laden Film
- 'Transformers 3' Extra Receives $18.5 Million Settlement For Injury
- REVIEW: Josh Brolin Makes Men in Black 3 Matter — Almost
- Robert Pattinson Talks Cosmopolis Re-Team, Says Cronenberg Wanted to Film His Junk
- Prometheus Promo: Up Close with Logan Marshall-Green's Hot Scientist, Holloway
- Barry Sonnenfeld On His Post-Converted Men in Black 3: It's 'The Best Use of 3-D'
- Breaking Dawn - Part 2 Character Posters: Photoshop Forever
Isn’t it time for Will Smith to grow up? Bad boy Cain? He should be playing bad boy Cain’s father!
Seriously? I think Will Smith is a fantastic actor and the age comments are tiresome. He still has plenty to give so let him do it!
Will is aging very well! Men seem to have an advantage when it comes to aging. Most men that is. Women have to be careful. Angelina Jolie is not aging well. She looks 10 years older than her real age. Almost all of her photos are airbrushed. Will Smith & George Clooney don’t have this problem.
The problem with how women age in Hollywood is that they’re always too thin for their bodies, and that makes them look older. If AJ gained ten or fifteen pounds she’d look great.
Men don’t tend to be as skinny.
Seriously? If anything Women age easier than the majority of men. look that up.
George clooney certainly looks his age – Will Smith: he’s lookin’ a bit rough around the edges, but fine overall with a little dye – then us black folk tend to age well in general.
And almost every star in photos, particularly specialized ones or glamour shots are airbrushed, whether they’re 20 or 40, or 60, it doesn’t matter. Angelina looks fine – she’s just looking even more skinny, and if anything, ‘that’ is making her look more haggard.
Wow, that comment is a little sexist, and not in a blatant way, but an assuming one. How did you get such a skewed view of the world. There are a ton of actresses out there in their 50′s and 60′s who look gorgeous, act masterfully, and are just as airbrushed as 18 year old tarts in fashion mags. Men are the same way. Aging is a number, it’s not your personality or your attitude, or your skill set.
Our perception of beauty these days, it’s just stupid.
in no way was that comment sexist, he’s just realy missinformed.
i do agree with the majority of your post but i don’t think you should use the sexist card if the statement isn’t ment as an insult; it just makes you sound like a “post_femmanist/femma_natzi”.
I disagree first off he is a good actor second i love his bad boy movies i mean they are both good and i wish that there were more bad boy movies!! I love you will smith!!
If it’s by Mr Knauf-it’s gotta be good! I can’t be the only one that holds his tv show Carnivale with such estseem.
Yes!!! Perfect. Love it.
Didn’t see the “vampiric twist” part on my phone. I retract my earlier excitement. Thanks for waiting to add that part after I post and make me look like a douche, Mike…
Interesting. Will Smith usually picks some interesting films. Loved him in I Am Legend. (He’s also had some “what-was-he-thinking flops”). Who will play Abel I wonder? Or their parents Adam and Eve?
Did I read that logline correctly? Oh sure, the famous Old Testement tale of vampires in Canaan…..WTF?
Vampires are sucking the life out of potentially good projects all over town.
Nice one God… I agree with you on the grounds that 1) you’re right and 2) I don’t want you to smite me
Actually, that sounds a great deal like the creation myth from the classic roleplaying game; Vampire: The Masquerade
http://www.thebookofnod.com/chronicleofcaine.html
This is either White Wolf or a LAWSUIT.
For those that don’t know, this is an established plot from the Vampire RPG that has existed for over 10 years. In that game, Cain is the O.V. (Original Vampire).
Somebody tell Will that this one has developmental hell written all over it.
I so intensely hope that this IS already connected to White Wolf, and that that material will be handled with respect. such brilliant, intricate history, all rewritten so beautifully, and viscerally.
That incredible gaming franchise deserves a solid trilogy on the big screen after so long in limbo. The fan base is far larger than many people would think too btw.
I’ve no doubt Will smith could play a very dark disturbing character given the chance. He’s ridiculously talented and has deserved all his hype over the years.
Smith’s team has generally (not always: Wild Wild West) picked winners. This sounds like a loser.
First, vampires are already over-exposed, likely to be a fad well past when this movie hits screens. Second, Smith’s appeal is limited to being in good movies, not himself. The era of the movie star is over. Third, the “legend” of Will Smith himself is over-exposed, i.e. weird Scientology rumors, Tom Cruise cronyism, other things, that make him less of a sell than ten years ago.
Retelling of the Cain-Abel story with a vampire twist? Who’d care to see that movie? Answer: the folks who turned out for Wild Wild West.
If anyone else starred in 7 Pounds it would have made $3. With Will it makes 170million.
Era of the movie star over? Wrong… he’s just the only one we have.
Hey, Whiskey, how’s that whole “no one wants to see a black kid in a movie” thing goin’ for you about “Karate Kid”? $210 million so far, there, sparky.
Sorry to disappoint you, but vampires were popular BEFORE the current fad and will remain so.
Wait a minute: “the Biblical sibling tale, this time with a VAMPIRIC twist”??? Apparently the sky is the limit with vampires right now. I can imagine development meetings currently around town… “It’s Shakespeare meets Vampires, no brainer, box office gold, blah blah blah”. He should have done Seven Pounds with a “vampiric” twist. Maybe it wouldn’t have come off seeming like such force fed self righteous bullshit. Where’s DJ Jazzy Jeff when you really need him.
shakespeare with vampires? i have seen all of five minutes of twilight but it kind of seems like romeo and juliet…
also, are people forgetting that cain is supposedly the first vampire in a lot of mythological versions? this isn’t really a twist
I thought Lilith was the first vampire.
And honestly, Twilight is not like Romeo and Juliet – there’s nothing really keeping the leads apart except trumped-up angst, and sadly they don’t kill themselves.
Will Smith is the only actor that can guarantee success at the box office
Yeah. Cause his participation is what made his last film, Seven Pounds, such a hit.
sadly don’t guarantee quality
No way this ever gets made. Pinkett, the writer? Smith’s just cooling out the relatives, man.
Old Testament vampires?
Just shoot me.
Interesting. I’d have thought that Will Smith got all that ‘vampiric’ stuff out of his blood stream with I Am Legend. Obviously not.
I seem to remember Francis Lawrence was developing a futuristic sci-fi take on the Biblical of story of Samson that was apparently being ‘tuned’ for Will Smith.
I wonder if they’ll both ditch that and give this a spin instead. Hmmmmmm.
Oboy… Another Vampire twist… I’m bleeding to death already!
What became of the once humble Will Smith? He gives nepotism new meaning! Overbrook Entertainment partner Jada Pinkett Smith (his wife) coincidentally has the same last name as this script which was written by a Caleeb Pinkett!! No doubt there will be a role for their little boy in this “epic.”
Will Smith as bad boy Cain’s father? That would make him Noah. Can anyone else hear the beginning of Bill Cosby’s classic Noah tale? Voo-bah…voo-bah…voo-bah… (That’s Noah sawing a piece of wood.)Will Smith as Cosby’s Noah isn’t such a bad idea!
Er, not Noah, Adam and Eve. So the garden of Eden was full of vampires? Or were the vampires on the outside with their noses pressed up against the window? This won’t just offend Christians. Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel all have headline roles in Judaism and Islam as well. Brilliant idea!
It’s actually an interesting idea…
For those of you actually FAMILIAR with the bible story. Cain was marked by God and cursed to walk the earth forever as a punishment for killing Abel…
Sooooo, Cain being a vampire (since they are immortal) is not that far-fetched a fictional story.
Cain was marked to keep others from killing him because he killed Abel. He was not cursed to walk the Earth forever. The idea of this movie is so offensive. Why does Hollywood think that this is okay, but to portray muslims as terrorists is wrong?
…bacause Christians will get cranky while some Muslims will get ammo…?
Ask Penn and Teller.
It has a bit to do with the fact the Mohammedans will kill you and have the support of most of their co-religionists.
…Cause muslim terrorists are soooo 1990′s (TRUE LIES, PATRIOT GAMES, EXECUTIVE DECISION, RULES OF ENGAGEMENT, BLACK HAWK DOWN, SUM OF ALL FEARS… whoops, those were in the 2000′s)…
Patriot Games was IRA not Muslims, and Black Hawk Down was Africans…….you dont know what you are talking about.
African muslims, dude.
Not really terrorists though. More like the local gangster militia.
+but it’s true, arabs where the bad guys in pretty much every 90′s action flick. (fascists and russians were fairly prominent too)
Wow, Rick. What a douchebag you are.
Yes, Hollywood NEVER portrays muslims as terrorists.
It didn’t happenin A Cafe in Cairo, or The Desert Bride. Nope.. not in Black Sunday or Back to the Future. Nope, not in Iron Eagle, Delta Force, Executive Decision or Patriot Games (Yes, Patriot Games. Miller takes refuge with some North African muslim terrorists after his escape). Didn’t happen in True Lies, The Siege, Rules of Engagement (which justifies the Marines killing Arab women and children).
So, Rick. Remember the age-old advice, in the future, you should keep your pie-hole shut and let people only assume of your douchebaggery.
Cains father was Adam.
Adam and Eve. Cain and Abel. Noah built the arc.
Are people really going to be OK with vampires being added to a bible story?
It’s a book that includes six-headed lions, talking snakes and people returning from the dead.
It’s not exactly a stretch.
Yeah, I can see some protests coming. This is not the first time Biblical figures were portrayed as vampires. Judas was portrayed as a vampire in Dracula 2000. I don’t remember any protests. The fact that Cain & Judas are usually considered villains might help.
And there’s always Lilith, considered the mother of vampires.
Yeah, I don’t think people mind Biblical bad guys (the first murderer, the guy who betrayed Christ) being cast as vampires as a “curse.” If it were Moses or Noah, THAT would make people mad.
Considering that the Bible’s essentially a work of fiction, what can a few vampires hurt? *bring on the abuse*
Would be interesting to see as Dan Knauf who wrote Carnivale on HBO is one of the authors. Carnivale was the best thing to come out of HBO, and had a great story line, and involved the supernatural. Just having Dan Knauf as one of the authors is enough to make me want to see it.
I “HOPE” that L. A. Banks is getting the proper credit and/ or attribution for this concept; because the last time I checked, Cain’s legacy involved murdering his brother, not vampirism.
(For those who want to know what I am referring to, look up “Anita Blake: Vampire Huntress Legends” by Leslie Edalie Banks.)
If he his going to take this role, I could only appreciate it if he read Banks’ series. While embodying the Cain depiction as it is suggested and is similiar within Banks’ series because this seems all way too “coincedental” or a brand novel of an idea that was just pulled out of thin air.
Given that L. Banks didn’t come up with the idea either…White Wolf had the same idea 15 years earlier. So, if anyone deserves credit…it certainly isn’t Banks.
Anita Blake is the Vampire Executioner by Laurell K Hamilton, but the Vampire Huntress is L.A. Banks.
Your argument would be more convincing if you hadn’t gotten a basic fact wrong: LA Banks did not write the Anita Blake series.
The Vampire the Masquerade RPG, which was super popular in the 90s (and spawned two awesome video games in the 00s), is all based on the idea that the first vampire was Cain (or Caine) who was cursed for killing his brother. I wonder how much they’re going to steal from that and if there will be any credit given?
I thought the same thing when I read this, Josh. Curious to see if White Wolf is a partner or being ripped off. There’s 10+ years of copyrights on this concept, backstory, etc.
I’m going to bet ripped off and I’m also going to bet that Will Smith has better lawyers than White Wolf.
Well, the vampiric connection isn’t as forced as you might think at first glance; the biblical story depicts Cain’s descendants (and Cain himself) as being exiled and in some way “marked” and given special protections from God.
Consequently there are a lot of Hebrew/Christian traditions and folklore about what happened to Cain’s descendants, and how they were marked and that they’re hyper-violent and live hidden among us and are immortal and have special powers, etc…so, adding a “vampiric twist” to the Cain and Abel story is something that’s already been done hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
That being said, I’m beyond sick to death of the vampire thing and want to shoot myself in the face every time I read about these things in development.
Wrong. I am no Bible scholar, but the story of Cain and his descendants are in Chapter 4 of Genesis, the very first book of the Bible. Very easy to find. The only “special protections” given to Cain was a mark to keep others from killing him. Not to stop them from killing him, but to warn them if they did vengeance would be taken on him sevenfold. His descendants were given no mark. His curse was that the Earth would not supply him with what he wanted or needed without extra effort.
I have never heard of any “folklore” about Cains descendants living among us “hidden” or immortal.
So, the vampiric connection is very forced and with zero basis.
I’m sorry that you personally are not familiar with “folklore” about Cain’s descendants living among us “hidden” or immortal. Believe it not, it may exist outside of presumed omniscience.
Google is your friend.
And parts of the Bible aren’t forced?
Oh God I just threw up!
So is Cain still gonna kill Abel or is Abel gonna fall down and crack his head or some such bullshit so Will Smith’s Cain won’t be responsible?
I made endless fun of the White Wolf/Underworld lawsuit, but this one probably has some teeth. Cain/Caine as first vampire was pretty much the core of Vampire: The Masquerade mythology. It also makes me cringe (if I’m a studio) that this “idea” was written up in-house by Smith’s people.
Let’s push the “you can’t steal an idea” a bit more, eh?
I’ve read this, Dan Knauf’s script is awesome!!!!
Yeah, it’s actually very well-done. I didn’t really see Will Smith when reading, but that might be because I still see Fresh Prince and Independence Day in my head – and Cain in this is actually a fantastic, almost Shakespearean part. Crossing my fingers that he’ll do it justice!
How did you get a copy of the script? Is it available somewhere? I’d like to read it.
I wonder if Smith’s Scientology connections contribute to him not worrying about any potential religious backlash (though would there really be any?)
I continue to be amazed that vampire projects are still in demand.
Dosn’t sound like my type of movie but Will rarely disappoints. There’s nothing wrong with him providing opportunity for his family. Many of the cowardly anonymous critics are just mad because this is one club they don’t have membership in. The nerve of some of you privileged arrogant bastards to act as if his actions tool food off your plate.
Hey, another Daniel Knauf project! I am a dedicated fan of DK’s now defunct series (shame on HBO!), ‘Carnivale’ and enjoy seeing all of his other work. Will Smith is one of my favorite actors. Between the two, this should be a marvelous project.
Daniel Knauf proved he can handle mystical/supernatural/mythological and combine it with a compelling story line in Carnivale, an HBO series. Combining his writing talents with Will Smith should make for a very interesting/profitable movie!
Having Dan Knauf involved in the script makes it interesting. His BRILLIANT work on HBO’s Carnivale included adding some out-of-the-box, supernatural aspects, with some biblical undertones. His research was well done, and his crafting of the story was outstanding.
Here’s hoping the same can be done with this one, even if the vampire twist is a bit of yesterday’s news… if we’re going pop culture, hopefully this vampire will be more of the Ann Rice than the Twilight “glittering vegetarian” persuasion… I can at least say Knauf will do his research as to what a vampire actually is!