Will Smith’s Slavery-Era Drama Becomes First Production to Pull Out of Georgia Over State’s Voting Law
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Will Smith and director Antoine Fuqua announced Monday that they will pull the production for their upcoming film Emancipation out of Georgia due to the state’s new voting law.
The film, a slavery-era thriller, is the first major production to leave the state due to the election laws, which have been largely denounced as a way to make voting harder for Black Americans, including by President Joe Biden, who slammed the law as “Jim Crow in the 21st Century.”
“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,” the two said in a joint statement. “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.”
Deadline first broke rumors of the news early Monday morning, writing that the film will likely shoot in Louisana instead, where the film’s events are actually set.
While Stacey Abrams has called the legislation “terrible” and “vicious,” she has urged Hollywood productions to hold off on boycotting the state, predicting that Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) is “reveling in the potential of a boycott because it gives him someone to blame for his own actions,” noting that, “boycotts work best when the target of your boycott is responsive.”
Smith’s film, however, is tied to race, racism, and American history, specifically slavery and the treatment of Black Americans, leading to particularly poor optics as activists have condemned the law’s effect on the Black community.
According to Deadline, Smith will play Peter, a slave who fled a Louisiana plantation after he was whipped and almost killed — eventually joining the Union Army. The drama is based on true events, as Peter’s story became famous after Harper’s Weekly published photographs of his scarred back.
