Will Smith is disappointed that his dramatic portrayal of a very concerned brain doctor one year ago did not immediately dismantle America’s most popular sport.
Last winter, Smith starred as Dr. Bennet Omalu in Concussion, a film about the dangerous impact football has on the brains of its athletes and how the National Football League attempted to cover these dangers up. Unlike Smith’s 1999 vehicle Wild Wild West, which forever destroyed America’s love of horses and mechanical spiders, Concussion has yet to make a significant dent in billion-dollar profits of America’s favorite football emporium.
The film received mixed reviews and its $48 million in box office revenue was considered a disappointment by most. Some critics said the movie’s departure from some facts for dramatic effect hurt its delivery of a serious message: that playing football is directly linked to the brain injury known as CTE.
This week, Smith told Vanity Fair he’s disappointed the film failed to resonate with a bigger audience.
“I thought Concussion would have a bigger impact. I knew it would be hard because people love the game, but the science is so overwhelming, and it’s something that we really need to take a look at,” he said. “I thought that people would get behind the mission of that. I was surprised that people were absolutely like, “Nope, I’m not stopping watching football, so I don’t want to know.”
Smith went on to tell a pair of anecdotes: one about a former CIA director and another about, um, choking a dog to death. No, this is not the setup for some elaborate roast joke.
“I saw [former C.I.A. director David] Petraeus randomly a couple months ago, and he said, ‘Listen, I just watched Concussion. My wife made me watch it; I didn’t wanna watch it. I had refused to watch it. That’s the best movie you ever made.’ That was the first time that someone had actually, specifically said they didn’t want the pain of watching it.”
While Petraeus may have been pleasantly surprised, audiences weren’t up for facing the realities of football injuries. As Smith joked: “I got away with choking a dog to death—but you are not gonna choke football.”
The difference between I Am Legend and Concussion is, of course, is that the zombie apocalypse is inevitable and completely based in fact. The idea that playing football significantly shortens the lives of its participants while causing lasting, permanent pain and suffering is, obviously, not true.
The NFL first agreed to settle with former players after high-profile studies came out about the effects of playing pro football. Research revealed that players who sustained repeated blows to the head faced an increased risk of long-term neurological health problems, including CTE, according to the Times.
League officials long denied there was a direct correlation between playing pro football and CTE. Then in March, a league official conceded there was in fact a link between the two, the Times reported.
Everything is fine. Please patronize the brands on display during the upcoming commercial break. Go team.
(via EW)
