Will Smith will play a runaway slave in film Emancipation in collaboration with director Antoine Fuqua
Will Smith is set to play a runaway slave in an action thriller film titled Emancipation in collaboration with director Antoine Fuqua.
The 51-year-old actor will play the role of Peter in the historical motion picture, which is based off a true story from an 1863 photo titled The Scourged Back.
The image, according to History.com, depicts Peter showing off a heavily scarred back after a treacherous journey to freedom. (The photo, which was in Harper’s Weekly in July of 1863, was critical in changing the beliefs of white Northerners looking to abolish slavery.)
New role: Will Smith, 51, is set to play a runaway slave in an action thriller film titled Emancipation in collaboration with director Antoine Fuqua, 54
In the film, Smith’s character must scramble through swampland and other rough environments in a run for freedom and to join the Union Army, Deadline reported.
The film – its script was penned by Willam N. Collage – is expected to commence production beginning next year, and will be made available in the forthcoming virtual Cannes market later this month.
The Philadelphia-born Smith was in the middle of making King Richard – playing Richard Williams, the father of at the Venus and Serena Williams – at the time the COVID-19 pandemic led Hollywood to shut down all productions. He was also in the $419 million hit Bad Boys For Life earlier this year.
Smith famously turned down the role of the lead character of the slave Django in Quentin Tarantino’s 2012 motion picture Django Unchained (Jamie Foxx wound up in the role).
In the works: The film directed by Fuqua is expected to commence production beginning next year. The filmmaker was snapped last year in Italy
Career arc: Smith famously turned down the lead role in Django Unchained, with Jamie Foxx stepping into the part
In 2015, he told The Hollywood Reporter that his decision to pass on the blockbuster, which also featured Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, and Christoph Waltz, ‘was about the creative direction of the story.’
‘To me, it’s as perfect a story as you could ever want: a guy that learns how to kill to retrieve his wife that has been taken as a slave. That idea is perfect.’
He added: ‘I wanted to make that movie so badly, but I felt the only way was, it had to be a love story, not a vengeance story … I just couldn’t connect to violence being the answer. Love had to be the answer.’