Yahoo Movies Aladdin Director Guy Ritchie Would Cast 'Consummate, Generous Gentleman' Will Smith Again for Sequel
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Guy Ritchie would be happy to cast Will Smith in "anything."
At the Red Sea International Film Festival in Saudi Arabia on Friday, Ritchie — who worked with Smith on 2019's Aladdin — told The Hollywood Reporter that he has "never met a more lovely man" than the 54-year-old Emancipation star.
"Working with [Smith] was one of the most wonderful, great experiences I've ever had," Ritchie, 54, told the outlet. "I never saw anything other than the consummate, generous gentleman."
The director, who is rumored to be returning to the world of Aladdin for a sequel to the live-action Disney remake, noted that he would welcome Smith to return as the Genie in Aladdin 2.
"I wouldn't have any issue casting Will Smith in anything, because, as I say, he was just the f------ perfect gentleman," he said.
Multiple outlets reported in February 2020 that Disney was moving forward with a sequel to Aladdin, with writers John Gatins (Flight, Real Steel) and Andrea Berloff (Straight Outta Compton, The Kitchen) tapped to write a script for the sequel, as THR reported at the time.
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The live-action film starred Will Smith, Mena Massoud and Naomi Scott as the Genie, Aladdin and Princess Jasmine, respectively. It's unclear whether any of the three will return for the upcoming movie, which is in pre-production, according to the outlet.
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Ritchie is not the only Hollywood figure who has offered compliments to Smith in recent days.
At the Los Angeles premiere of Emancipation — Smith's first film release since the Oscars incident in which he slapped Chris Rock — on Wednesday, Smith's costar Charmaine Bingwa gushed to PEOPLE of the "beautiful" Smith.
"He's very generous and I like to work with actors who, when you look in their eyes, you can kind of see the world in their eyes, and he has that," she said.
The Good Fight actress, who plays Smith's character's wife in the Antoine Fuqua-directed drama, noted that it felt "so easy to be connected to him on screen."
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"And it worked, because we had a great love to portray, you know? So I'm very glad it was that way. It would be a different movie otherwise," Bingwa said. "But no, he's marvelous."
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"I think the whole world loves him," she said.
Ben Foster, who also stars in Emancipation, told PEOPLE that Smith just has "the thing" that makes him such a major movie star.
"It's like, how do you describe a sunset? How do you describe the stars?" the actor said. "Some people just have the thing."
"But what I saw was him going deeper than I've ever seen before," Foster added of Smith's performance in the new movie.
