Hi everyone and thank you for tuning in to the 13th episode of Awards Chatter

the Hollywood Reporters Awards Podcast I'm the host Scott Feinberg, and this is our last episode before Thanksgiving, and so I just want to take a moment to express my thanks for the fact that so many of you have tuned in and shared such positive feedback about this new venture of ours.

And also to thank the people here at the Hollywood reporter who have made it possible from Janisman and Lynn Seagull to Dan Strauss and Jan Laski to Lela Zade, Nancy Kane and our new producer Dora

Takash. I really appreciate it and I know that our listeners do too.

Every one of these episodes has been a lot of fun both in the

preparation and the execution and then sharing it with you, but I have to tell you that

I have never been as excited to share one with you as I am this one which is about as cool as it gets.

Today we are going to spend 45 minutes with Will Smith, the biggest movie star in the world right now by every available measure,

who appears to be on track to land his third best actor Oscar nomination

his third for a biopick as well we should note for his portrayal of Dr Bennett Amalu a brilliant Nigerian

who came to this country, became a terrific medical examiner,

and then stood up to the NFL when he made a medical discovery that they wanted him to keep to himself.

Now, before we get to that conversation let's just recap

what's happened over the past week. The big news out of the weekend is that the

Hunger Games mocking Jay Part 2 if you can remember that mouthful top the box office in its opening weekend with over

$100 million, leaving in its dust both Specter, which had done very well the previous few weekends,

and the Peanuts movie, the Childs option among the big movies. the lesbian love story had the third highest opening weekend average for a limited

release of 2015 following only Steve Jobs and Sakario with $62,000 per

theater in four theaters in its first weekend and release.

We'll see how it does as it continues to expand, but that is a solid opening and one that

the Weinstein company desperately needed.

The other big story, which I can't really get too much into is that

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