Will Smith is Set To Play Crime Boss Nicky Barnes in a Netflix Film Called THE COUNCIL

Will Smith is the kind of actor that always seems to play a good guy or a hero in the movies that he makes. Well, he’s about to shed his good-guy persona and is set to play true life crime boss Nicky Barnes in a new Netflix film called The Council.

Nicky Barnes was in charge of the most notorious mobs in New York City. He was the boss of a crime syndicate in Harlem in the 1970s and 1980s and he changed up the drug dealing game when he partnered up with the Italian mafia. This crime syndicate was made up of men “who dreamed of a self-sufficient and self-policing African American city-state, funded by revolutionizing the drug game.”

The New York Times also described Barnes as “the flamboyant dope peddler who flooded Harlem and other black neighborhoods with heroin, led cops on frivolous 100 m.p.h. car chases and redefined bling.”

The movie is being written by Peter Landesman (Concussion, Parkland), and according to The Wrap, it will “center on the syndicate’s head, Nicky Barnes, who was dubbed by the New York Times as ‘Mr. Untouchable.’ The film will focus on the Shakespearean court intrigue between Barnes and all the different members of the syndicate, as one unlikely rising protégé emerges.” He was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment, eventually becoming a federal informant.

This isn’t the first time that Nicky Barnes will be the subject of a film. He was previously played by Cuba Gooding Jr. in Ridley Scott’s American Gangster. Barnes was the rival of Frank Lucas who was played by Denzel Washington.

This is going to be a different kind of role for Smith to play, but he’s a great actor and I have no doubt that he’s going to give a great performance. I’ll be looking forward to seeing it.