Director Antoine Fuqua and producer-star Will Smith are taking the production of their slavery drama Emancipation out of the state of Georgia. After it was announced in July 2020 that Apple had won world rights what was considered one of the largest acquisitions on Cannes Film Festival history. AppleTV+ acquired rights for ‘Emancipation’ at $105 million net. Will Smith’s ‘Emancipation’ Moves Out Of Georgia
“At this moment in time, the Nation is coming to terms with its history and is attempting to eliminate vestiges of institutional racism to achieve true racial justice,” Smith and Fuqua said in a statement for The Hollywood Reporter. “We cannot in good conscience provide economic support to a government that enacts regressive voting laws that are designed to restrict voter access.”
Fuqua, who is directing and producing through his Fuqua Films, and Smith, who starring in and producing the production via his media company Westbrook Inc, made the announcement Monday. ‘Emancipation,‘ is a William N. Collage-scripted thriller about the escape of Peter, a slave forced to join the Union Army. Will Smith’s ‘Emancipation’ Moves Out Of Georgia
The thriller is based on a true story, fueled by an indelible image; when Peter showed his bare back during an Army medical examination, photos were taken of the scars from a whipping delivered by an overseer on the plantation owned by John and Bridget Lyons. When the photo known as “the scourged back” was published by the Independent in May, 1863 and then in Harper’s Weekly‘s July 4 issue, it became indisputable proof of the cruelty and barbarity of slavery in America. The photo reached around the world, and legend has it that it made countries like France refuse to buy cotton from the South. It solidified the cause of abolitionists and prompted many free blacks to join the Union Army.
“The new Georgia voting laws are reminiscent of voting impediments that were passed at the end of Reconstruction to prevent many Americans from voting. Regrettably, we feel compelled to move our film production work from Georgia to another state.”
The thriller was to have begun production June 21. It now becomes the first major production to leave the state because of the new law.
Passed by a Republican legislature and signed into law by a Republican governor, the new voting law has been heavily criticized by observers as being overly restrictive — it curtails the use of dropboxes, enacts strict new ID requirements for absentee ballots, makes giving water and food to those waiting in line a crime — and targeting the state’s Black populations. Politicians and civil rights activists have called the law a harkening back to the era of Jim Crow, a time when many Southern states created laws that kept institutional racism intact even after the Civil War.
Georgia has one of the more generous production tax incentives in North America and is a major production hub for The CW, Marvel, Netflix and HBO Max. Hollywood is debating how to handle the Georgia situation, which has divided producers and executives, with some calling for a production boycott while others saying a boycott would cause more harm to the very voters being hurt by the new law.
The move by Fuqua and Smith could have a cascading effect in the coming days or weeks and could put pressure on more productions to leave the state.
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