{"id":130427,"date":"2025-09-03T19:25:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T19:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/130427\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T19:25:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T19:25:09","slug":"will-smith-and-westbrook-sign-first-look-paramount-pictures-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/130427\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Smith And Westbrook Sign First-Look Paramount Pictures Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tParamount<\/a> Pictures continues its streak of high-profile deals, sealing a first-look, multi-picture deal with Will Smith<\/a> and his company Westbrook<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing the closing of the Skydance merger<\/a> last month, the new pact with Smith will focus on creating global, four-quadrant theatrical movies with franchise-starting and IP-based films.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe terms encompass a first-look deal\u00a0with a\u00a0development commitment to\u00a0franchise-starters positioned as starring vehicles for Smith, which include the thriller Sugar Bandits and Rabbit Hole. Westbrook will be based on the Paramount lot in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\n\tBased on the book Devils in Exile by Chuck Hogan, Sugar Bandits follows a former Special Forces soldier who runs an elite vigilante squad working to wipe out the drug trade in Boston.<\/p>\n

\n\tRabbit Hole will be penned by Dune scribe Jon Spaihts; plot details are unknown at this time.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe deal marks another huge win for Paramount, which has been on a streak of luring big-time talent under new boss David Ellison. Last month, the Duffer brothers, who had a strong relationship with Netflix going back to the debut of Stranger Things, signed a four-year deal with Paramount last month that stunned the industry.<\/p>\n

\n\tSmith and Westbrook previously had their deal with Sony for decades. <\/p>\n

\n\tParamount has also been busy on the content front, recently acquiring the rights to adapt a feature film based on the Activision video game series Call of Duty. It also made a big splash the day the Skydance deal closed, landing the coveted package High Side starring Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet, with James Mangold directing.<\/p>\n

\n\tSmith and Westbrook are repped by CAA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paramount Pictures continues its streak of high-profile deals, sealing a first-look, multi-picture deal with Will Smith and his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[88,4208,38811,4277],"class_list":["post-130427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-paramount","tag-westbrook","tag-will-smith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}