Will Smith Nearly Starred In This '90s Movie As Payment After Getting Sued

"House Party" is a '90s cult classic that kickstarted a beloved decades-long franchise. What you might not know about Will Smith is that he and former collaborator Jeffrey Townes almost starred in the film because of a music video and a pricey lawsuit. In 1987, Townes and Smith, known as DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, decided to write a song inspired by and sampling the score from "A Nightmare on Elm Street." 

So they could release the song, Barry Weiss, the vice president of Townes and Smith's record company Jive Records, spent months trying to persuade New Line Cinema, who owned the rights to the film, to pick DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince to promote the upcoming sequel, "Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master." New Line Cinema went with a group called Fat Boys instead. But Townes and Smith still released the song "A Nightmare on My Street" in April 1988, months before the film's release, which competed with Fat Boys' track. New Line Cinema sued Zomba, who owned Jive, and the rap duo for the song, and then successfully got a preliminary injunction after the rap duo filmed and prepared to release an accompanying music video for the song.

The legal issue was settled before going to a full trial, but Townes and Smith were given a way out of paying the damages. "In the lawsuit, we gave [Smith] the option: Either you pay us money or you appear in one of our movies," Janet Grillo, a former executive at New Line, told The Ringer in 2020. Townes confirmed this was indeed the deal on the table, though they didn't take it. He detailed to Radio Milwaukee in 2012, "So 'House Party' was set up for Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. We weren't thinking about doing movies back then" (via CBR).

Reginald Hudlin, the director of "House Party," was also not keen about Will Smith and Jeffrey Townes being forced to star in his directorial debut. Another hip hop duo, Kid 'n Play, whose real names are Christopher Reid and Christopher Martin, was cast as the leads instead, and "House Party" became a box office hit without DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. Smith and Townes' decision would go down in history as a huge mistake if not for their next venture.

In the '90s, Smith decided to turn to acting to pay off debts to the IRS, starting with a TV show that would become one of the most famous sitcoms of all time, "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." The series got its name from Smith's stage name after the "Men in Black" star joined the show, and Townes played Smith's character's friend, Jazz. From there, the rapper appeared in his first film, "Where the Day Takes You," and Smith quickly gained an A-list reputation (that he has since ruined).

While the "A Nightmare on My Street" music video was buried for years due to the injunction, Townes uploaded it to YouTube in 2018, with seemingly no backlash from New Line. So now fans can watch the video that got Townes and Smith in so much trouble in the first place.