Will Smith, his production company Overbrook Entertainment, and Sony have bought the rights to the life story of Hurricane Katrina hero, John "The Can Man" Keller. While John Lee Hancock will be writing the script and directing The American Can, Sony has also bought a spec script about Keller from writer and producer Adetoro Makinde. Keller himself is also one of the associate producers.

Keller, who was a resident of the American Can Company at the time of the storm, helped the other residents of the building -- many elderly and/or handicapped -- and a few refugees stay safe while the flood waters raged outside. Keller also documented his story with photos and videotape. He told The Times-Picayune in 2007, "There were other people rescuing people. But they didn't hot-wire boats, hot-wire cars, swim to the grocery store, come back with food, cook for all those people, organize them, get the thugs off them." In the end, 244 people were evacuated safely with help from Keller.

Fans of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and haters of Will Smith may have cause to rejoice. Production Weekly is reporting that Johnson will be taking the helm of the Nautilus as Captain Nemo for McG's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea reboot/prequel. As Disney appears to own Johnson's soul, this does have the ring of truth to it, and it's also the proof you need that this will be a shameless popcorn prequel, not a Pirates sort of risk that could launch a guy like Naveen Andrews, Oded Fehr, or Alexander Siddig into becoming a household name. (See, I read the comments!)

However, I do like Johnson and I have shared the dismay of action fans everywhere by his startling addiction to kiddie fare and tutus. It would be nice to see him kick ass again, and he certainly has the charisma and swashbuckle to play the Captain. Complexity probably isn't going to be an issue, especially given the official PW synopsis: "A fugitive whaler teams up with a naturalist, a mysterious woman and a captain of a futuristic submarine, to search for a lost underwater civilization that holds libraries of vast knowledge and a weapon with the power to destroy mankind."

Production is set to begin in Australia later this year and with McG set to do the final round of Terminator: Salvation press, maybe we'll get an official cast update. It has potential to be something fun if they get a good ensemble, but your cynicism may vary.

Last week, the trades announced that McG was going 20,000 leagues under the sea to tell the origin story of Captain Nemo and his incredible submarine. I'm sure we all began making a mental list of who would make a really cool Captain Nemo because that's what film fans do.

Well, McG is doing the same thing, and when Latino Review caught up with him at the Terminator: Salvation roadshow, they asked who his dream captain was. "Man I'm trying to get Will Smith to do it, been trying to get a hold of him. I've been wanting to work with him for a long time already. That guy's great." Oh. While Smith is capable of good work, he isn't the actor that first comes to mind when McG describes this version of Nemo. "The character Nemo in this film is more about obsession, he is obsessed and people tend to forget that when you become so obsessed you end up being the villain."

Add to the fact that Jules Verne's Nemo is actually a tragic Indian prince, whose origin and secret lair are revealed in The Mysterious Island -- it could be a great, star-making part for (and I'm going to steal CHUD's brilliant casting idea) a guy like Naveen Andrews. Andrews would be a perfect Nemo. Let's hope Smith is too busy producing The Karate Kid remake, and being the last pharaoh, and someone else has a chance to step in.

There are plenty of movie stars (including one currently headed to theaters donning an eye-patch) whose acting skills amount to riffing on a one-dimensional celebrity persona. And then there are those valuable few like Will Smith, who actively seek out roles -- often in so-so mega-blockbusters -- that challenge their range and demand more than simply endearing smirks and cutesy quips. For Smith, this has resulted in a career at once box-office lucrative and critically respected, with his performances in work as varied as 2007's post-apocalyptic sci-fi actioner I Am Legend and 2006's true-life melodrama The Pursuit of Happyness exhibiting equal amounts of intensity and nuance. Smith can do macho bluster and ladies' man charm in his sleep, yet what elevates him above most of his marquee brethren has always been an ability to lace such outsized qualities with a strain of vulnerable fallibility. He's a figure at once larger-than-life and still relatable, a hero capable of revealing, in ways more subtle than the chaos that frequently surrounds him, mortal tenderness and uncertainty.

Having, with The Pursuit of Happyness, already proven himself capable of bringing raw sensitivity to mawkish material, there was modest reason to hope that Smith might again pull off the same feat in his second collaboration with that film's director, Gabriele Muccino. No such luck. Seven Pounds is misguided mush from the moment go, a deliberately muddled bit of inspirational pap that masks its inherent silliness with structural obliqueness and, worse still, affords Smith scant opportunities to infuse his character with authentic humanity.

Superhero movies are like Lay's potato chips (it is Lay's, isn't it?) -- you can never have just one. JoBlo caught up with Will Smith during his press rounds for Seven Pounds, and asked him if we would ever see any more of his reformed superhero, Hancock. The answer? "Definitely."

In fact, Smith is uninterested in ever playing another superhero because there's enough franchise potential in this one. He told JoBlo that there's plenty of unexplored characters in Hancock's universe that would be ripe for a sequel -- and that we'll find out who they are in an eventual sequel. It's not expected for a few years, which is puzzling. It did well at the box office, but it wasn't particularly memorable. In two or three years, will anyone actually remember Hancock enough to flock to a sequel? Won't their brains be overloaded with all those Marvel and DC movies? Shouldn't Peter Berg and Smith while the iron is relatively hot?

Then again, we are talking Smith. He's the King of Summer. The iron is always hot. Audiences will probably flock to see him whether or not they remember the original film or not. Let's turn it over to you guys -- are you up for a Hancock sequel? Do you see the unexplored characters and potential that could keep Hancock competing with Marvel and DC for years to come? Or was he just a summer one-shot?

Since it looks like we're going to get some sort of I Am Legend prequel or sequel down the road, leading to what could be a new, hip movie franchise featuring Will Smith, why not spend some time this holiday season with the newer original remake (that sounds weird, right?), and learn a bit more about the mythology behind the film. I know a lot of people aren't too keen on I Am Legend (The Smith Version), though I kinda dug it on my first viewing. Granted, I didn't see the film until it hit Blu-ray last year, and I watched it with the alternate (and better, in my opinion) ending, but ultimately I thought it was a fine, entertaining little creepshow.

Those willing to give the film a second chance (or watch it for the first time) might want to dive into this pretty nifty Ultimate Collector's Edition, in stores December 9th on DVD and Blu-ray. The latter edition arrived at my shack yesterday and I have to say it's a pretty neat little toy. You can purchase the collection on DVD for $39.95 over here and on Blu-ray for $47.95 over here. Check out what you get:

Blu-ray:

• 3-Disc Special Edition DVD
• Exclusive 44-Page Concept Sketch Book
• 10 Concept Illustrations
• 6 Art Cards Showing International Cities Devastated by the Plague
Virus
• Collectible Lenticular
• Letter from the Director
• New Movie Commentary by Director Francis Lawrence and
Screenwriter/Producer Akiva Goldsman

More after the jump ...

Just so we're clear: I liked I Am Legend. I thought Will Smith did a great job of carrying what was (to be honest) a fairly mediocre film. But c'mon, was there really anything left to say? Warner Brothers is convinced that there is, and have even managed to bring back Smith and director Francis Lawrence for what we all thought was going to be a prequel. However, a tipster for AICN (who goes by the name of Westwood9) has dropped a few crumbs about the project, and if you thought the idea of a prequel was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.

According to AICN's tipster, "Smith is actually the one who developed the initial story. It took place several years before the original film and there were still pockets of survivors and the story centered around Smith interacting, bonding, and ultimately failing to save them." Not bad, right? Well, don't get too attached, because according to AICN, the studio wasn't biting (get it?) and, instead, scrapped the prequel in favor of a sequel. That's right, an honest to goodness sequel. Supposedly Smith and screenwriter D. B. Weiss weren't going to go for it either, but have since come around to the idea.

When the project was first announced back in September, I think most of us had just assumed that the only way to make another film was to make a prequel. *Spoiler Alert* After all, didn't the good doctor blow up at the end of the film? (There were of course those alternate endings, but we probably shouldn't count those). If WB does go ahead with a sequel, do you think it will open up a whole new world of possibilities about what happened to Smith's character at the end of the first film? Or, will it just confirm that the whole idea is just a cash-grab from the word go.

Sound off below...

Those of us who were in a moderate panic following the news of a planned Steven Spielberg-Will Smith remake of Chan-wook Park's singular Oldboy can rest a tiny bit easier. According to Will Smith, who's out and about promoting Seven Pounds, the film is in the works -- but it's not a remake after all. Film School Rejects has the money quote:

"We're looking at [Oldboy] right now. Not the film though, it's the original source material. There's the original comics of Oldboy that they made the first film from. And that's what we're working from, not an adaptation of the film."

I'm not sure it makes that much of a difference; an American version of Oldboy is an American version of Oldboy. But at least now Park's film might be able to stand as a companion film to the eventual Hollywood behemoth, without the studio trying to make everyone forget that it exists. I don't have the same hope for, e.g., the Matt Reeves remake of Let the Right One In, which I am actively dreading. Oldboy is something Hollywood can do well, if differently; Let the Right One In can only go badly.

If you haven't seen Park's Oldboy, I strongly recommend a rental. It's pretty unique, and has at least one utterly jawdropping action scene. You know which one I'm talking about.

Holy crap! Just when you think there's no chance... Back in January of 2007, Jessica posted about the woes of the impending Oldboy remake. Director Justin Lin was backing out of the project, and it looked like the whole thing would dissolve into development hell. And it did.

But now it might be getting one hell of a Hollywood power-team behind it. Variety reports that Tinseltown bigwigs Steven Spielberg and Will Smith are circling the project. DreamWorks is working on getting the rights, Universal will distribute it, I imagine Spielberg will helm it, and Smith will play the lead ... if everything works out.

If you've missed the original by Chan-wook Park, Oldboy centers on a man who is kidnapped and imprisoned in a cell for 15 years with no explanation, until he is released one day and given a cell phone, money, and clothes. He then sets out to discover what happened and get his revenge.

It'll be great, meaty material for Smith, but I don't know if a big, mainstream project is the way to go. Then again, at least it will probably barely resemble the original. What do you think? Should the project have stayed in limbo, or are Spielberg and Smith the men to make it happen?

The first trailer for Will Smith's new flick has just arrived online, and it's called Seven Pounds ... and it was directed by Gabriele Muccino (The Pursuit of Happyness) ... and it definitely looks like one of them tear-jerkers. (For those obsessive, need-it-right-now folks, you can watch the trailer after the jump.) In the film, Smith plays a guy who's feeling guilty about mistakes he's made over the years, and so he decides to help change the lives of seven total strangers. In doing so, he winds up falling in love with one of the aforementioned strangers, played by Rosario Dawson. So here we have a movie about giving to others, it comes out December 19 (right in time for Christmas), and it stars our most precious A-list actor. Mmmm ... makes you just wanna wash it all down with a slice of apple pie.

Seven Pounds marks Big Willie's second trip to the multiplex this year, after first starring in the summer superhero action/adventure Hancock. A quick glance at his previous two films spots a similar pattern of action blockbuster and quiet drama -- and even though Smith will always guarantee you great numbers on opening weekend no matter the genre, one wonders which version of the man you all prefer? For ten bucks, would you rather spend it watching Will Smith kick ass on a $200 million budget, or would you prefer to spend the time with his gentler, Oscar-nominated side? Or, would you rather watch the man star in more straight-up comedies, a la Hitch?

How do you like your Will Smith?

Related: Fan Rant: Will Smith Needs to Play a Villain