Fantasy cop movie Bright releases photos of Will Smith and his orc partner

March 6th 2017, 1:57pm

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

Man, I'm so down for the fantasy buddy-cop movie BRIGHT starring Will Smith and Joel Edgerton! In the film, Smith plays a seasoned cop who is partnered with a "diversity hire" orc cop, played by Edgerton in an alternate present-day where humans, orcs, elves and fairies have been coexisting since the beginning of time.

Anyway, Entertainment Weekly got to talk with the two stars about the film. Here's what Will Smith had to say:

I love how bizarre it is…I’ve been saying it’s Training Day — a gritty LA cop drama, the darkness and handheld grittiness — meets Lord of the Rings. There’s orcs and fairies and elves, mean-ass elves…I’m getting ridiculed by other members of the police force…In their interpretation, I’m giving [the orc] a fair shot, and I should really just be trying to get him off of the force.

Edgerton added:

I am the first orc, under a diversity program, to be allowed into the police force…I’m under investigation already for an incident that involved an orc who should have been apprehended but managed to escape. The feeling is that I looked after my own kind first and neglected to do my job as a result…It’s the forming of a trust relationship between us…I think we are hopefully on our way to becoming friends.

Smith went further about the plot, saying that, after the two investigate what seems to be a regular routine case, there's then "a discovery of a magical relic, an artifact of the Dark Lord’s war against humanity". Wait, there's a Dark Lord now? That sounds like just the right amount of goofy and awesome, and only makes me more onboard!

And here's some new official pics from the film, that definitely shows more style than the trailer did:

Like I said, I dig all this shit. I know people are hoping for a SHADOWRUN film, which would indeed be cool, but I kind of prefer this film's backstory (I know, blasphemy!) Thing is, I was never that keen on the cyberpunk aspects of SHADOWRUN, and I prefer the idea that there was a LORD OF THE RINGS-esque battle between a "Dark Lord" that shaped our history in BRIGHT, rather than the random Goblinization of SHADOWRUN's backstory (where people are transformed to orcs, goblins, etc. every 5000 years, instead of being born that way).