Will Smith and Steven Spielberg were on a similar wavelength in the 2000s. After finishing licking his wounds from 1999’s “Wild Wild West,” Big Willie was eager to prove his chops as a dramatic actor. Adapting a bit of a one-for-them-one-for-me mentality, Smith earned his first two acting Oscar nods for “Ali” and “The Pursuit of Happyness,” in between nodding his head as Agent J and tearing up the streets of Miami again as Mike Lowrey. Even his tentpoles started to get a little darker and heavier along the way, with the actor anchoring a big-screen rendition of Richard Matheson’s end-times sci-fi horror story “I Am Legend” and playing a tough, hard-drinking superhero. in “Hancock.”

Spielberg, meanwhile, spent the first decade of the 21st century redefining his work. Really, there was very little he didn’t try his hand at during this period, from creating disturbing, noirish visions of…