Baz Luhrmann (The Great Gatsby, Australia) has become the latest director to cast Will Smith’s son and professional obnoxious person Jaden Smith in a movie. Smith could last be seen in After Earth, where he was commonly singled out as one of the worst parts of an M. Night Shyamalan movie.
Smith has joined the cast of Baz Luhrmann’s music-driven Netflix drama, “The Get Down” – the 1970s Bronx series – in the role of Marcus “Dizzee” Kipling, an 18-year-old who’s described as a psychedelically talented and enigmatic graffiti writer raised in the South Bronx.
Said Luhrmann, “We as an audience have known Jaden since he was very young. Recently, Jaden has been seeking diverse and challenging roles and this is a testament to his passion to grow in the craft.” [indiewire]
“Jaden Smith booking a role he doesn’t deserve is a real testament to how passionate he is about continuing to be a famous person. What’s next for this ambitious young man? The sky’s the limit, really. His father might even buy him a new car.”
So what, exactly, is The Get Down? Here’s more, from The Hollywood Reporter:
According to a Netflix press release: “The Get Down focuses on 1970s New York — broken down and beaten up, violent, cash strapped — dying. Consigned to rubble, a rag-tag crew of South Bronx teenagers are nothings and nobodies with no one to shelter them — except each other, armed only with verbal games, improvised dance steps, some magic markers and spray cans. From Bronx tenements, to the SoHo art scene; from CBGB to Studio 54 and even the glass towers of the just-built World Trade Center, The Get Down is a mythic saga of how New York at the brink of bankruptcy gave birth to hip-hop, punk and disco — as told through the lives and music of the South Bronx kids who changed the city and the world … forever.”
“…as told by an eccentric Australian man.”
This sounds like a bad iPod commercial. “In a dying, forgotten wasteland, all they had was their talent. Now starring the world’s most useless, celebrity offspring dilettante…”