Will Smith to Star in Sci-Fi Thriller ‘Resistor’

The studio is looking to stay in business with its ‘Bad Boys’ lead, landing him to anchor the new movie, which will adapt a 2014 novel by Daniel Suarez.

Will Smith in Columbia Pictures 'Bad Boys: Ride of Die.'

Preview:

Will Smith has the lead in a new sci-fi thriller called ‘Resistor’.
The movie adapts Daniel Suarez’ novel ‘Influx’.
No director is attached yet.

After a couple of years in the movie star wilderness thanks to The Oscar Slap Heard Around The World, it certainly appears that Will Smith is back in demand.

Last month, we brought news of him taking a role in director Stefano Sollima’s new crime/action movie ‘Sugar Bandits’ and now he’s also circling the lead in a new sci-fi thriller called ‘Resistor’.

Science fiction has been a mostly reliable genre for Smith –– it helped launch into the star stratosphere with the likes of ‘Independence Day’ and ‘Men in Black’, though more recent efforts have not been as impressive to critics or to studio bank balances (‘Gemini Man’ and ‘After Earth’, to name two.)

Yet this new project, which Sony is ramping up its development schedule so as to stay in business with the actor who just helped deliver the company a success with action comedy sequel ‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’, sounds like it could be an interesting one.

What’s the story of ‘Resistor’?

Will Smith in 2007's 'I Am Legend.'

‘Resistor’ will adapt Daniel Suarez’ 2014 sci-fi thriller novel (which is actually titled ‘Influx’). It follows physicist Jon Grady and his team, who have discovered a device that can reflect gravity — a breakthrough that will revolutionize the field of physics and change the future. But instead of acclaim, Grady’s lab is locked down by a covert organization known as the Bureau of Technology Control.

The bureau’s mission: suppress the truth of sudden technological progress and prevent the social upheaval it would trigger (read: it wants to keep the advance’s benefits for the rich and powerful).

When Grady refuses to join the BTC, he’s thrown into a nightmarish high-tech prison housing other doomed rebel intellects. Now, as the only hope to usher humanity out of its artificial dark age, Grady and his fellow prisoners must try to expose the secrets of an unimaginable enemy — one that wields a technological advantage half a century in the making.

Who is making ‘Resistor’?

Tom Cruise plays Capt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in 'Top Gun: Maverick' from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.

‘Bullet Train’ writer Zak Olkewicz was the first person to submit a script on the movie, while Eric Warren Singer (who contributed to ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ and wrote ‘American Hustle’) has crafted the most recent version, which got Sony executives interested enough to pitch it to Smith.

The actor will also produce the movie via his Westbrook company, though according to Deadline, this won’t be the next film he makes, since ‘Sugar Bandits’ would seem to be in much better shape to shoot.

‘Resistor’ still needs to lock down a director, and the studio is expected to start meeting with potential filmmakers in the next few weeks.