It can be easy to forget after what happened at the Oscars, but Will Smith was once one of the most beloved and bankable movie stars on the planet — he did, of course, win a prestigious acting award immediately after the thing that happened at the Oscars. Visionary filmmaker Ang Lee once tried to capitalize on this with his clever 2019 sci-fi thriller Gemini Man, which featured both a contemporary 2019-aged Will Smith and a de-aged retro Will Smith battling each other for Will Smith supremacy. Now, Gemini Man is finally finding an audience on free streaming service Tubi, where it has quickly risen to the top of its popularity charts.
Gemini Man was, unfortunately, a pretty disastrous flop when it came out, earning just $173 million from a $138 million budget. It also didn’t fare well with critics at the time, holding just a 27 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, but that’s paired with an 83 percent from users, suggesting that there is at least some level of secret success here. However people felt about it in 2019, Gemini Man is a movie that tried something, and audiences are more hungry for that than ever now.
What Is ‘Gemini Man’ About?
Gemini Man stars Will Smith as Henry Brogan, an ace government assassin who becomes disillusioned with state-sanctioned murder after a job nearly goes wrong. He tries to retire and goes into hiding, but ends up meeting another government agent, named Danny (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who was sent to keep an eye on him. When an old friend tells him that the guy he assassinated in the beginning was actually innocent, Henry and Danny start investigating an elaborate government conspiracy.
To cover up its secrets, a rogue government agency called GEMINI sends its own ace assassin after Henry and Danny. As they fight, Henry realizes that the new assassin looks an awful lot like him as a young man. Of course, it is him as a young man, or at least a genetically engineered clone of him, so now old Will Smith has to try and survive a showdown with young Will Smith. That leads to a lot of juicy stuff that Ang Lee loves, namely the sort of “nature vs. nurture” debate that also popped up in his underrated Hulk movie.
Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive? The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars
Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you’d actually make it out of alive.
💊The Matrix
🔥Mad Max
🌧️Blade Runner
🏜️Dune
🚀Star Wars
01
You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do? The first instinct is often the truest one.
02
In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely? What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires.
03
What kind of threat keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you’re honest about what you’re actually afraid of.
04
How do you deal with authority you don’t trust? Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything.
05
Which environment could you actually endure long-term? Survival isn’t just tactical — it’s physical, psychological, and very much about where you are.
06
Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart? The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are.
07
Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all? Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they’re actually made of.
08
What would actually make survival worth it? Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.
Your Fate Has Been Calculated You’d Survive In…
Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.
The Resistance, Zion
The Matrix
You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You’re a systems thinker who can’t help but notice the seams in things.
You’re drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it.
You’d find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines’ worst nightmare.
You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it.
The Matrix built an airtight prison. You’d be the one probing the walls for the door.
The Wasteland
Mad Max
The wasteland doesn’t reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That’s you.
You don’t need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon.
You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you’re good at all three.
You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider.
In the wasteland, that distinction is everything.
Los Angeles, 2049
Blade Runner
You’d survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.
You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer.
In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional.
You’re not a hero. But you’re not lost, either.
In Blade Runner’s world, that distinction is everything.
Arrakis
Dune
Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.
Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they’re survival tools.
You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory.
Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You’d learn its logic and earn its respect.
In time, you wouldn’t just survive Arrakis — you’d begin to reshape it.
A Galaxy Far, Far Away
Star Wars
The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn’t have it any other way.
You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion.
You’d gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire’s grip can be broken.
You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn’t something you’re capable of.
In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference.
‘Gemini Man’ Involved a Divisive Digital Gimmick
Will Smith crying in Gemini ManImage via Paramount Pictures
Other than de-aging Will Smith and having him battle another Will Smith, Gemini Man had another crucial gimmick. Lee chose to film it at a high frame rate — 120 frames per second — and with added 3D effects, which likely scared off potential ticket-buyers who didn’t know what to expect. What a high frame rate actually means in a technical sense is very complicated, but it adds to what people think of as a “soap opera effect” where the images are too clear and too smooth, making it potentially disorienting to watch.
Our eyes and brains are used to watching things at a certain frame rate, partially because movies have traditionally maintained 24 frames per second since the silent era. We’re trained to see that as normal, so any variation, even one that’s ostensibly an improvement, looks weird. Peter Jackson had done the same thing many years earlier, and it was divisive then as well, but his Hobbitmovies were filmed at 48 frames per second. That’s still many, many fewer frames than Gemini Man’s 120, but the good news is that, if you’re afraid of that many frames, you can’t really experience it like that anymore outside of a special theatrical screening.
