Film + TV

Will Smith’s Netflix orc movie sounds insane

by Tyler Munro

In March, we told you that Netflix had won a bidding war for Bright, an upcoming fantasy crime thriller starring Will Smith and created by Max Landis and David Ayer. The details were scarce then: We knew Will Smith would portray a human forced to work with an orc, and we had seen it described as a blend between Ayer’s End of Watch and 1988’s bonkers Alien Nation. Today, we learned a little more.

First, that Bright is rounding out its cast, which now features Joel Egerton, Noomi Rapace, Lucy Fry and, most recently, Brad William Henke, who played Captain Piscatella on the most recent season of Orange is the New Black.

But as solid as the cast is seeming, it can’t hold a candle to the movie’s plot, which we now know is about Will Smith and his reluctant orc partner teaming up to protect a magic wand from cops, criminals and an assortment of “magical creatures.”

Remember: Multiple studios were in a bidding war to produce this script, and Netflix’s $90 million budget for the movie put it out on top. They’ll start filming some time this fall. [h/t Variety]