Will Smith and David Ayer explain the ins-and-outs of Bright, their upcoming Netflix buddy-cop action-fantasy film, in a new featurette. Written by Max Landis, Bright was picked up in March by Netflix - which spent $90 million to acquire the project, as part of their on-going effort to become legitimate players as producers of major-studio-level genre films.
Set in Los Angeles in a world where fantasy characters live alongside humans, Bright stars Will Smith as human cop Daryl Ward, who is reluctantly partnered with Jakoby (Joel Edgerton), the first Orc ever to make the police force. Together the duo stumble upon a magical object that gives its owner unlimited power, and must fight to keep this artifact out of the hands of criminals, corrupt cops and others with dreams of becoming invincible supervillains.
In a new featurette released by Netflix, Smith (who’s starring), Ayer (who’s directing), and others take viewers on a tour of the movie’s mash-up action/fantasy world (see the video above). Smith explains the film’s backdrop, describing how its version of L.A. seems pretty normal, except that it’s partially populated by Orcs, Elves and other races normally seen only in the pages of fantasy stories or in movies directed by Peter Jackson.
The featurette mostly recycles the same footage seen in the last Bright trailer, adding interview clips. Like the trailer, the video sets up how Ward and Jakoby become partners, patrolling the streets of L.A. and engaging in humorous buddy-cop banter. We’re then introduced to Noomi Rapace’s Elf character Leilah, who looks like she may have stepped right out of a Cyberpunk novel (as if the film didn’t already address enough genres). Leilah is in possession of what Jakoby calls “a magic wand,” some kind of powerful artifact that Smith compares to “a nuclear bomb.” Evil forces of all races naturally want to get their hands on this magic object, which would give them the power to take over the world or just destroy stuff with impunity.
As David Ayer explains in the clip, much of the movie centers around the friendship of Ward and Jakoby as the two seemingly very different characters bond through their shared experience. This dynamic will be familiar to fans of Starsky and Hutch and Lethal Weapon, or the movie and TV series Alien Nation, or any of the thousand other stories that have centered on the budding friendship between mismatched characters as they navigate a series of hazards. The fantasy element not only adds a layer of novelty to the buddy-cop formula, it also allows for a plot that veers into comic book superhero territory; though how all this will ultimately fit together remains to be seen.
As the clip promises, a new trailer for Bright is set to drop on Sunday, October 22, so we’ll keep our eyes peeled for that.
Source: Netflix
- Bright Release Date: 2017-12-22
