Is there any truth to the Popeye the Sailor Man poster featuring Will Smith and a 2024 release date?

Will Smith’s Popeye: Real or Fake?

Recently, a live-action poster has been making the rounds on social media showcasing Will Smith as Popeye the Sailor Man for a 2024 live-action film.

The poster shows Will Smith adorning the iconic Popeye sailor hat, tatted up, flexing his biceps, and smiling with a pipe in his mouth.

Popeye The Sailor Man

Sadly for audiences excited by this hypothetical prospect, the fake movie poster is the product of AI—no such project exists.

The character of Popeye first debuted on January 17, 1929, in the Thimble Theatre comic strip. He would go on to star in his cartoon series in 1933.

Popeye has only gotten one live-action movie, which was released in 1980 and starred both Robin Williams and Shelly Duvall.

ParamountWill a New Popeye Movie Ever Get Made?

This fake Will Smith poster isn’t even the first false marketing for a Popeye movie recently.

A fan-made movie trailer from Foxstar Media teased the idea of Popeye the Sailor Man starring Dwayne Johnson.

It would seem that fans are vying for some sort of Popeye film. Sadly, there’s no live-action movie in development at all.

There is, however, an animated project with director Genny Tartakovsky in the works—though the movie seems to be stuck in development hell. The last update on it was in May 2020, which revealed that the creative team was “going back to the drawing board.”

While Will Smith fans won’t be seeing the celebrity as Popeye anytime soon, some of his next projects include Bad Boys 4; Planes, Trains & Automobiles; and I Am Legend 2.