Will Smith’s New Thriller Supermax Heads to Streaming

Will Smith is heading back to work — and this time, he’s going straight to your couch. The actor has closed a deal to star in Supermax, a new action thriller directed by David Gordon Green, with Amazon MGM Studios swooping in to acquire worldwide rights in a deal reportedly worth around $70 million. No theatrical run planned. This one is going straight to streaming.

The film centers on two FBI agents investigating a murder that takes place inside the world’s most secure prison. Smith will play one of the agents, with his partner written as a female character — casting for that role is currently underway. Production is set to kick off in mid-August.

It’s a notable move for Smith, whose last big screen appearance was Bad Boys: Ride or Die — a film that proved, emphatically, that audiences still show up for him. That 2024 sequel pulled in over $400 million worldwide on a $100 million budget, coming just two years after the Oscars slap incident that dominated headlines. Amazon will have clocked those numbers carefully. Deadline, which broke the story exclusively, noted that the studio’s acquisition is as much a vote of confidence in Smith himself as it is in the project.

The script comes from David Weil and David J. Rosen, the duo behind the Prime Video conspiracy thriller series Hunters — the Logan Lerman and Al Pacino-led drama — as well as the sci-fi series Invasion. Both writers will also executive produce. Producers include The Picture Company’s Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman, with Smith and Adam Fishbach producing through Smith’s company Westbrook. Miramax CEO Jonathan Glickman, President of Film Alexandra Loewy, COO Thom Zadra, and SVP Spencer Ela round out the executive producer roster. CAA Media Finance brokered the deal.

A Reunion — And a Career High — for David Gordon Green

For Green, Supermax represents his biggest budget film to date. The director has built serious genre credibility over the past several years, helming multiple entries in the relaunched Halloween franchise and The Exorcist: Believer, and most recently directing five episodes of the new Prime Video series Scarpetta, starring Nicole Kidman. So this is something of a reunion with Amazon — and a significant step up in scale.

There’s also an interesting creative thread connecting several pieces of this project. Green previously collaborated with co-writer Rosen on Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, an Apple TV series that Green directed and executive produced. Meanwhile, Weil is currently writing the Evan Gershkovich film for director Edward Berger, and is also penning the script for Extraction 3, the Chris Hemsworth-starring Netflix action franchise. The Picture Company, producing Supermax, is simultaneously in production on Weil’s feature directorial debut — the Amazon MGM thriller Tyrant, starring Charlize Theron, Julia Garner, and Demi Moore.

Amazon moved fast to lock this one down. There was reportedly a real possibility that Supermax would surface at the Cannes market — but the studio closed the deal ahead of time specifically to prevent that from happening.

What’s Next for Will Smith

Supermax is the first of several Smith projects expected to move forward, and it’s the one with the clearest runway right now. Two other films are in development at Paramount, which holds a first-look, multi-picture deal with Smith and Westbrook: Sugar Bandits, based on Chuck Hogan’s novel Devils in Exile, following a former Special Forces soldier running a vigilante squad targeting the drug trade in Boston; and Rabbit Hole, penned by Dune screenwriter Jon Spaihts, with plot details still under wraps.

No release date has been set for Supermax yet, but with cameras rolling in August, it won’t be long before we get our first look at Smith back in FBI mode — just on a much smaller screen than we’re used to.