Will Smith and Antoine Fuqua are teaming up for Emancipation, a runaway slave thriller.
Fuqua is directing the project that is based on a true story. Smith will star in the picture that William N. Collage is penning.
The film is based on the true story of runaway slave Peter. He is forced to outwit cold-blooded hunters and the punishing Louisiana swamp on a tortuous journey to the Union Army. For his only chance at freedom.
Emancipation also accompanies the infamous image that is Peter, in which he showed his bareback 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.
The photo is 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.
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The film uses his story and his photo as a historical background. However, it is still an action thriller with a powerful emotional core. It will also delve into Peter’s death-defying journey to escape his captors.
He used onions to mask his scent from pursuing bloodhounds. As well as his strength and smarts to survive running barefoot through the swamps for 10 days.
Smith, James Lassiter, and Jon Mone will produce Emancipation through Westbrook Studios. McFarland Entertainment’s Joey McFarland and Escape Artists’ Todd Black are also producing. Fuqua will executive produce under his Fuqua Films banner, alongside Cliff Roberts.
Production will commence in early 2021.
News of the slave thriller, Emancipation was first read on Variety.