Will Smith Set to Star in Film Adaptation of BRILLIANCE

Will Smith (Men in Black, The Pursuit of Happyness, Gemini Man) has been hired on to star in the film adaptation of the Marcus Sakey novel Brilliance. Akiva Goldsman will write the script and co-produce alongside Smith. This will be their fourth film together, after I, Robot, I Am Legend, and Hancock. Here’s the synopsis, courtesy of Deadline:

If 1% of the world’s children were born with powerful gifts, how would society adapt to them? The Brilliance novel trilogy is set in a future where non-neurotypical people — demonized by society as “twists” or “abnorms” — are threatening the status quo of the “normal” population with their unique gifts. They are officially labeled as “Brilliants” and are carefully tracked by the government.

And here’s a rundown of the character Smith will be playing:

Smith will play the book series hero Nick Cooper, a federal agent who works for the Department of Analysis and Response. His job is to track down and terminate criminal abnorms who use their gifts for ill. The agent is himself an abnorm, with a gift for predictive analysis that allows him to see what will happen before it happens and react preemptively. He is also the father of a Brilliant daughter.

As he infiltrates a radical group of Brilliants who plan to incite a civil war, he uses his own gifts against his Brilliant enemies, like an assassin who perceives time faster than his opponents. When Cooper is ordered to hunt down John Smith — the country’s most elusive and most dangerous abnorm — everything Cooper believes in will be called into question. As one of the abnorms he’s hunting tells him, “You can’t stop the future. All you can do is pick a side.”

Smith was originally asked to consider this role a few years ago, but ultimately put it on the back burner to make the 2015 film Concussion, which got him a Golden Globe nomination for his performance. Luckily, he was able to come back around to this film, and we will see it get made. I think it sounds pretty interesting. What about you?