Will Smith has changed his plans and won’t shoot his upcoming film Emancipation in Georgia because of the state’s new restrictive voting regulations, which were signed into law this month by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.
Directed by Antoine Fuqua, the film probably will be shot in Louisiana now, where the actual events of the haunting thriller occurred. The movie is expected to cost around $15 million to shoot now that it won’t be receiving Georgia’s tax breaks.
“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 explained in a joint statement to Deadline. “We cannot in good conscience provide economic support to a government that enacts regressive voting laws that are designed to restrict voter access.”
“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,” added Smith and Fuqua.
Emancipation will star Smith as “Whipped Peter,” a fugitive slave who escapes a southern plantation in Louisiana and joins the Union Army. The beatings, which Peter nearly died from, were delivered by an overseer on the plantation owned by John and Bridget Lyons. In 1863, photos were taken of Peter during an Army medical examination and the images of his scarred back have appeared in numerous books and publications and throughout the internet. The images were the first seen that truly depicted the atrocities of slavery.
Emancipation is passion project for both Smith and Fuqua in the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement and the killings of George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Breonna Taylor and hundreds of others. Apple secured the film after besting Warner Bros in a deal close to $130 million.
Emancipation was scheduled to begin filming on June 21, 2021 but those plans have now been altered.
