//wasana.news.{showbiz: AMERICA}.Will Smith is no stranger to sports dramas, having portrayed boxing icon Muhammad Ali in 2001's Ali (which earned the actor his first Oscar nomination) and taken on the NFL in 2015's Concussion (which also earned plenty of awards love). From the looks of the first trailer for King Richard, Smith could be in the running for a third Academy Award nomination for his latest sporting venture as Richard Williams, the determined dad who rallied Venus and Serena Williams to tennis superstardom. Given Smith's fatherly role and the film's inspirational tone, however, King Richard actually looks like it has more in common with the actor's 2006 tearjerker The Pursuit of Happiness — the film that netted him his second of two Oscar noms. Written by Zach Baylin and directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green (the 2018 Sundance premiere Monsters and Men), King Richard follows the formative years of the future phenoms Venus (Saniyya Sidney) and Serena (Demi Singleton) as they defy expectations and emerge out of the rough-and-tumble neighborhood of Compton, Calif. en route to global domination on the court.