After Earth
(Photo : Wikipedia) Will Smith considers the movie After Earth his "most painful failure."
Will Smith has starred in several blockbuster movies, and his name has always been synonymous to box office success. So what does the powerhouse actor consider his "most painful failure"?
Apparently, it's the movie "After Earth," which he starred in with his son Jaden Smith. The movie made $27 million on opening weekend, and grossed a total of $243 million globally. But considering it had a $130 million budget, excluding marketing costs, the movie was considered a huge flop.
"That was a valuable lesson for me a few years ago with After Earth. That was the most painful failure in my career," he told Esquire.
He said that the failure of After Earth was worse than "Wild Wild West" simply because his son was involved in the former. "I led him into it. That was excruciating," he admitted.
But Smith is not content in mulling over his failures. He learned that it is only through failure that people learn how to win. Smith took a break from work for a year and a half and thought of ways on how to improve himself.
He reflected on why it was so important for him to have a string of number-one movies, and he said that he would never have thought of giving an honest assessment about his situation had it not been for the failure that was After Earth.
It also pushed Smith to keep things in perspective since he learned of his father's cancer diagnosis just 24 minutes after discovering about After Earth's low box office numbers.
He was devastated over the low box office numbers but his father's health news felt "vicious," according to Smith. To cope, he went on the treadmill and kept running for ninety minutes, until he had a realization.
"That Monday started the new phase of my life, a new concept: Only love is going to fill that hole," said Smith. "The only thing that will ever satiate that existential thirst is love."
Smith's new thoughts were quite a turnaround from what he originally thought. When he was 15 years old, his girlfriend cheated on him and he decided that the only way he will not get cheated on again is if he remained on top.
"All I have to do is make sure that no one's ever better than me, and I'll have the love that my heart yearns for. And I never released that and moved into a mature way of looking at the world and my artistry and love until the failure of 'After Earth,' when I had to accept that it's not a good source of creation," he said.