The first official trailer for Will Smith's new movie "Concussion" was released yesterday and it's message is extremely powerful.
Smith's character, Dr. Bennet Omalu, tries to bring attention to the seriousness of head injuries in the NFL. While it's goal is to make this problem public so something more can be done about it, the film's director wants to make sure people know that they're not looking to hurt the NFL.
Even though the NFL is very prominent in the trailer, which is rare for a billion-dollar American institution like this one, it did not exactly approve of this. The movie is set to show the "real" NFL "in an unflattering light without their approval," according to Entertainment Weekly. It even declined to comment on anything about the film and the fact that many of its trademarks are used within it.
As for the ability to use real NFL teams, logos and stadiums, the studio said that they were "protected" and that it would "be fine," so they were allowed to do as they pleased.
Writer/Director Peter Landesman wanted to explain that even though it may seem as though they are "trying to take them down," they're not.
"This is not a movie that is intended to take down the NFL or destroy football. I love football. I played it," Landesman explains. "This is a movie that all audiences can watch, enjoy, learn from, but also be mesmerized by what I think is actually a ground-breaking performance, maybe the best performance Will Smith has ever given. And we were reaching out to America's biggest sports institution to be inclusive. So this isn't a take-down piece."
The trailer was officially released by Sports Illustrated's Peter King, who is a huge part of NFL journalism. They reached out to him so he could showcase what's bound to be an amazing film, not one that's meant to hurt anyone.
"Peter King, who is, as you said, the insider of insiders, the fat that he's embraced this movie, loved it, was eager to write about it, was eager to be the one to introduce it to the world," he told Entertainment Weekly. "I think that says an enormous amount."
He went on to explain how he had tried to contact the league to make this movie so it would be fair before he started such an intense project, but cancelled the meeting before it could take place.
"I realized at the end of the day, there's really nobody to serve," he explained. "I certainly wasn't serving the movie because, although this movie's not a piece of journalism, it is exposing very uncomfortable, and to the NFL, a very dangerous truth. And I knew that they were not going to be pleased. So I didn't want to subvert myself. I didn't want to get in my own way and reach out to someone who is not going to be party to the project. There was just no purpose. So that's a long way of saying that contact was really very minimal from either end."
"Concussion" hits theaters on Christmas Day. Watch the trailer below!
