The mission of Overbrook Entertainment, the production and management company co-owned by Will Smith, is simple: ``the creation of extraordinary entertainment art delivered to all people of the world.''

So whenever Smith, the most popular movie star in the world, is considering a new project, one of the conditions is that the picture meet the standards set by that guiding principle.

''The rule for me has been that you can tell people what the movie is about in one line -- and that one phrase has to satisfy both of the ideas in our motto,'' the 40-year-old actor says. ``For example: Hancock is an alcoholic superhero. You can make extraordinary entertainment art out of that, and people are going to come see it just based on that premise. Same with I Am Legend: The last man on Earth . . . is not alone. Everybody's coming to see that movie.''

But the formula is put to the test with Smith's latest picture, Seven Pounds, which reunites him with The Pursuit of Happyness director Gabriele Muccino. ''The problem with Seven Pounds is that it's a really interesting idea, but you can't tell anybody what it is,'' Smith says, unleashing his familiar boisterous, room-filling laugh. 'With this film, we have a yes on the `extraordinary entertainment art' part. But because we can't say that line describing what it is, it becomes difficult to deliver it to all people of the world.''

A melancholy drama about an IRS agent (Smith) who seeks out seven strangers to help change their lives, Seven Pounds doesn't hinge on a surprise plot twist, a la The Sixth Sense or The Crying Game. But it does require that the viewer know as little as possible about how the story plays out in order to get its full emotional effect. And despite his seemingly unstoppable power at the box office, Smith knows the movie's success is not a given.

The actor, who recently went on a multi-city tour to promote the film, riding around the streets of Miami, Cleveland and Dallas aboard a Seven Pounds bus, says it's not just the secrecy around the plot that makes the film such a challenge to promote. It is also that Seven Pounds intentionally lacks the ''Will Smith'' factor that has helped his past five films gross an astonishing $2.2 billion worldwide.

''It's like boxing,'' he said during a visit to The Miami Herald newsroom last month. ``In boxing, we agree that you're not going to kick or elbow or tackle me and take me down to the canvas. There's a certain artistry that comes in with the removal of weapons at your disposal. With a role like this, there's only story and performance. That's it. It's like artistry unobscured. It is totally about human emotion.''

This is new territory for Smith as an actor, since even his previous dramas, such as Happyness or the biopic Ali, were based on famous real-life stories and offered plenty of opportunity for him to play humor as well as pathos.

Seven Pounds, however, contains nary a glimpse of the instantly likable persona that made Smith a superstar.

''Will's performance in this film is calculated -- not in an ugly, manipulative way, but calculated to make Will be as authentic as he possibly could, both physically and emotionally, as a 39-year-old man who really has things he could lose,'' says Rosario Dawson, who co-stars in Seven Pounds as a young woman with a terminal heart disease. 'Gabriele didn't let him cut emotional corners or be Will Smith. We were shooting one scene in this big, open field and Gabriele was all the way on the other end, yelling at Will `Don't act like you're thinking! Be thinking! Be vulnerable like a naked newborn baby boy!' ''

For Smith, the prospect of stretching himself as an actor was exciting but also daunting, considering how fickle public tastes can be and how superstardom can disappear as quickly as it sprouts.

''There are certain elements of moviemaking that I have studied and worked hard at and become almost a black belt at,'' he says. ``So for me, to get rid of the special effects, to get rid of the comedy, to get rid of the foolproof July 4th blockbuster elements is all very scary. It's a terrifying undertaking to strip all those things away and just act, and hope that the performance and the story are powerful enough to get people excited to go to the theater.

``But with Seven Pounds, all that stuff is a little more terrifying, because no one can know [in advance] the thing that is fantastic about the movie. So yes, it's scary in that everything that comes up must come down.

''There's always a flop coming!'' Smith adds, once again unleashing that booming laugh -- a sound that makes it clear he's being at least a little facetious.

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