Will Smith's Biggest Sci-Fi Flop Stages a Comeback After Falling Short of $138M Budget

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Published Apr 5, 2026, 9:28 AM EDT

Rohan Naahar is a Weekend News Writer for Collider. From Francois Ozon to David Fincher, he'll watch anything once.

He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema.

Even before he assaulted Chris Rock at the Oscars and got banned from attending the Academy Awards for a decade, Will Smith was experiencing something of a career lull. If anything, he's doing better after the Oscars incident than he was in the years leading up to it. In that decade, Smith starred in the infamous critical and commercial failure After Earth, directed by M. Night Shyamalan and designed as a star vehicle for Smith's son, Jaden. He also headlined the box-office underperformers Concussion and Collateral Beauty, but ended the decade with the grand success of 2019's live-action Aladdin. That same year, Smith starred in his second sci-fi disappointment in quick succession — the movie in question is now seeing a surge in viewership at home.

The movie was directed by the Oscar-winning Ang Lee as part of his newfound obsession with high frame rate (HFR) technology. He had previously experimented with HFR on his 2016 war drama Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, which grossed only $30 million worldwide against a reported budget of $40 million and left audiences bamboozled. His 2019 film cost significantly more, but didn't exactly emerge as a hit. It remains the last feature film he directed. The movie was co-produced by the hit-maker Jerry Bruckheimer alongside new Paramount CEO David Ellison.

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Here's the Critically Panned Will Smith Movie That's Having a Resurgence on Streaming

We're talking, of course, about Gemini Man. The movie featured Smith as a sniper who is targeted by a younger clone of himself, also played by Smith. Gemini Man used digital de-aging techniques to present Smith in his 20s — this technology was gaining popularity in Hollywood at the time with movies such as Captain America: Civil War and The Irishman. Gemini Man's technological gimmicks weren't enough to attract audiences to theaters, however. It grossed around $175 million worldwide against a reported budget of just under $140 million. It holds a 27% critics' score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, "Gemini Man's impressive visuals are supported by some strong performances, but this sci-fi thriller is fatally undermined by a frustratingly subpar story." The film's 83% audience score, on the other hand, explains its success at home. According to FlixPatrol, Gemini Man was among the most-watched movies on the domestic Starz chart this week. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.