Will Smith Remains As Big a Star As He Was Before 'The Slap'

'Bad Boys: Ride or Die' opened with $21.6 million on Friday, showing that Will Smith is still an A-level movie star when safely encased within a franchise or I.P.

Well, that was a lot of worry and fretting for nothing. Sony’s Bad Boys: Ride or Die opened yesterday with $21.6 million in North America, nabbing the biggest single-day gross for an R-rated movie since Oppenheimer last July. It also opened just shy of the $23.6 million opening day of Bad Boys for Life in January of 2020, a rock-solid hold noting four years of inflation but also four years of pandemic and streaming-related changes in moviegoing habits. The 2.25 years spent handwringing over whether Will Smith had permanently marred his popularity/star power after he slapped Chris Rock during the 2022 Academy Awards were about as good a use of digital ink as the years spent wondering if Daniel Craig would reprise for a fifth and final 007 flick after his cranky Spectre promotional tour. Will Smith is as much of a movie star today as he has been since 2013, for better or worse.