Resistor: Will Smith to star in Influx adaptation for Sony

There were some who thought Will Smith had destroyed his career when he slapped Chris Rock on the Oscars stage back in 2022 – but with Bad Boys: Ride or Die passing the $100 million box office mark after just ten days of release, that’s clearly not the case. So it’s no surprise to hear that Sony, the studio behind Bad Boys: Ride or Die, is continuing their working relationship with Smith by getting him to sign on to star in the film Resistor, an adaptation of the novel Influx, from bestselling author Daniel Suarez.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Sony isn’t offering to reveal any Resistor plot details, so we have to turn to the description of Suarez’s novel to get an idea of what this movie might be about. Goodreads provides the information on Influx: Physicist Jon Grady and his team have discovered a device that can reflect gravity—a triumph that will revolutionize the field of physics and change the future. But instead of acclaim, Grady’s lab is locked down by a covert organization known as the Bureau of Technology Control. The bureau’s mission: suppress the truth of sudden technological progress and prevent the social upheaval it would trigger. Because the future is already here. And it’s rewards are only for a select few. When Grady refuses to join the BTC, he’s thrown into a nightmarish high-tech prison housing other doomed rebel intellects. Now, as the only hope to usher humanity out of its artificial dark age, Grady and his fellow prisoners must try to expose the secrets of an unimaginable enemy—one that wields a technological advantage half a century in the making.

Resistor doesn’t have a director attached yet, but it’s coming our way from Escape Artists and is being produced by Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, Steve Tisch, Tony Shaw, Dave Wilson, and Westbrook’s Smith and Jon Mone. Heather Washington is executive producing. As The Hollywood Reporter notes, Smith and Black previously worked together on Seven Pounds, The Pursuit of Happyness, and Emancipation.

What do you think of Will Smith signing on to star in Resistor? Have you read Daniel Suarez’s novel Influx? Let us know by leaving a comment below.