Antoine Fuqua & Will Smith to team for runaway slave thriller Emancipation

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Word has recently reached the bullpen that Antoine Fuqua (INFINITE, TRAINING DAY) and Will Smith (CONCUSSION, SEVEN POUNDS) are set to team for EMANCIPATION, a runaway slave thriller from the pen of William N. Collage.

Based on a true story, EMANCIPATION will tell the distressing story of Peter, a runaway slave forced to dodge a band of blood-thirsty hunters as well as the horrors that lurk within the deadly swamps of Louisiana. Peter will have to contend with all this and more as he makes a perilous voyage North to enlist in the Union Army.

"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 that nearly killed him. 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." (via Deadline)

Producing EMANCIPATION are Smith, James Lassiter and Jon Mone through Westbrook Studios, with McFarland Entertainment’s Joey McFarland and Escape Artists’ Todd Black.. In addition to serving as the film's director, Fuqua will also executive produce by way of his Fuqua Films studio, as part of a partnership with Cliff Roberts.

Recently, Fuqua was forced to halt production on his upcoming documentary THE DAY SPORTS STOOD STILL, due to the coronavirus pandemic. By that same token, Smith was instructed to leave the set of Reinaldo Marcus Green's KING RICHARD, a film for which Smith plays Richard Williams, the father and coach of tennis sensations Venus and Serena Williams. Thankfully for sci-fi fans, Fuqua's INFINITE is in the midst of its post-production stage. INFINITE, which stars Mark Whalberg and Chiwetel Ejiofor, tells the story of a man who discovers that his hallucinations are acturally visions from past lives. Also set to star in the 2021 sci-fi spectacle are Dylan O'Brien (THE MAZE RUNNER franchise), Rupert Friend (HITMAN: AGENT 47), Jason Mantzoukas (BROOKLYN NINE-NINE, THE HOUSE), Toby Jones (ATOMIC BLONDE, WAYWARD PINES), Sophie Cookson (KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE, MOONFLEET), and Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson (BLOODSHOT), among others.

Meanwhile, EMANCIPATION is expected to become an in-demand item of the upcoming Cannes Virtual Market, with production expected to begin in 2021.