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Despite his recent hiatus from the public eye, Will Smith is still doing work in the background that continues to cement him as one of the best actors ever to do it. According to Variety, the 53-year-old actor is preparing to cash in on his latest project, “Emancipation.” The AppleTV+ movie is an escaped-slave thriller that Smith agreed to after years of avoiding making films centered around the subject. “This was one that was about love and the power of Black love,” Smith explained in a previous interview. “And that was something I could rock with. We were going to make a story about how Black love makes us invincible.”
Over the past three days, reports have continued to fly about the 94th Academy Awards. On March 28, Shadow and Act reported about Will Smith and Chris Rock getting into a physical altercation following the presenter making a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair. While the Oscar winner has since apologized for what went down, the aftermath has yet to let up on how it sent the news and social media into a frenzy. Cryptocurrency has been a growing trend over the past year, so its community joining the recent viral Academy Awards moment was quite expected. According to Fortune, a digital coin of Smith slapping Rock was minted less than 24 hours of it airing live on the Oscars stage. At the time of March 29, the Will Smith Inu coin’s value hit a record high of 469% over the span of 24 hours. “The Will Smith Inu coin has seen its value soar 469% in the past 24 hours. And that’s 35% lower than the highs it hit at 7:00 a.m. ET on Tuesday,” the outlet then reported. And of course, there are...
Will Smith and his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, have announced the sale of a minority stake in their production company. Variety reports that the Smiths have closed a deal that sells the minority stake of Westbrook, Inc., a production company, to the as-yet-unnamed media venture that is run by Tom Staggs and Kevin Mayer, the former executives from Disney. Staggs and Mayer previously made headlines when they purchased Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine production company for a gobsmacking $900 million. The former Disney executives were represented by mega-financiers The Blackstone Group in the deal. Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith were previously in talks to sell the production company outright until that deal fell through. The minority stake in Westbrook, Inc., was purchased by the pair for $60 million, for a 10 percent ownership stake. And, Variety reports the deal values Westbrook, Inc. “at just under $600 million.” As AfroTech previously reported, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith...
Black executives in the entertainment industry are steadily climbing the leadership ladder. According to an exclusive from Variety , Westbrook Media — a digital subsidiary of Westbrook Inc. launched by founders Jada Pinkett Smith, Will Smith, Miguel Melendez, and Ko Yada — has shared that it’s tapped three seasoned executives — Sterling Milan, Jabari Hearn, and Drew Miles — for senior roles at the company. Seasoned producer Sterling Milan joins the company as the full-time head of original content, following his recent stint as an in-house executive producer, showrunning and directing series and specials for Westbrook Media originals. In a statement shared with Variety , Lukas Kaiser — SVP, head of content at Westbrook Media — said: “I’ve been a friend and a fan of Sterling’s for over a decade — and bringing him on to lead the creative side of production on numerous projects over the past few months has been a joy. We’re thrilled to bring him into the Westbrook Media family to help...