Will Smith's Genie

Submission 32,982

Part of a series on Aladdin (2019). [View Related Entries]

About

Will Smith's Genie refers to Will Smith's portrayal of the character Genie in the upcoming live-action adaptation of Disney animated film Aladdin. Following the release of promotional images for the film and consecutive reveal of the blue-skinned Genie in the second trailer, the appearance of the character was mocked online.

Origin

On December 19th, 2018, magazine Enterntainment Weekly posted a first look at the upcoming 2019 live-action adaptation of Disney animated film Aladdin^[1]. The cover revealed Will Smith as Genie, Mena Massoud as Aladdin and Naomi Scott as Jasmine.

On the same day, Will Smith made an Instagram post^[2] clarifying that the character will be blue-skinned in the movie.

On February 10th, 2019, the second trailer for Aladdin debuted at 2019 Grammy Awards. In the trailer, the Genie, now blue-skinned, was briefly shown.

Spread

The initial reveal of Smith as the Genie prompted strong responses from Twitter users. User @hullojess tweeted that she wished she'd never seen it, gaining over 830 retweets and 3,600 likes (shown below, left). User @Kyle_Cardine tweeted a photoshopped image of a Simpsons scene, gaining over 1,600 retweets and 7,800 likes (shown below, right).

Following the release of the second trailer, the appearance of the character has been heavily mocked on Twitter as CGI-heavy and unnatural, with numerous users comparing the character to Thanos ^[3], Shrek ^[4], Smurfs^[5] and Tobias Fünke from Arrested Development ^[6].

On Reddit, memes about the character in various formats appeared on several subreddits, including /r/dankmemes^[7], /r/memes^[8] and /r/prequelmemes^[9], with several examples also referencing Will Smith's appearance in YouTube Rewind 2018.