Star Will Smith and director Antoine Fuqua's slavery thriller Emancipation has moved production out of Georgia in protest against the state's controversial new voting law, SB 202.
“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,” Fuqua and Smith said in a joint statement published by Variety. “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.”
Smith and Fuqua are the latest celebrities to take a stance against SB 202, joining actors Ron Perlman and Mark Hamill, along with writer/director James Mangold. Major League Baseball has similarly decided to move the 2021 MLB All-Star Game and MLB Draft out of Georgia in response to the law's passage, with ViaComCBS condemning SBS 202 with a statement that includes the following sentence: "We unequivocally believe in the importance of all Americans having an equal right to vote and oppose the recent Georgia voting rights law or any effort that impedes the ability to exercise this vital constitutional right."
A 98-page omnibus bill signed into law by Georgia governor Brian Kemp on March 25, 2020, SB 202 makes a number of significant changes to the state's voting process. That includes stricter voter ID certification requirements and a shortened period in which voters can request an absentee ballot, in addition to the elimination of mobile polling sites, limitations on early voting in larger counties and prohibiting individuals from passing out food and/or water to those waiting in line to vote.
Smith will star in Emancipation as Peter, a fugitive from slavery who flees Louisiana in the hopes of traveling North to freedom. William N. Collage's script was inspired by the story of Gordon or "Whipped Peter," a real-life enslaved person who escaped the Lyons' plantation in St. Landry Parish and joined the Union army in 1863. After the Emancipation Proclamation was passed, Gordon enrolled other formerly enslaved people to fight against the Confederacy during the U.S. Civil War. Photos of Gordon were famously published by Harper's Weekly following an Army medical examination, revealing the numerous lacerations on his back from being whipped when he was enslaved.
Emancipation was sold to Apple Studios is a deal reportedly worth $120 million and was scheduled to begin filming June 21. For the time being, it's unclear where the production will move and whether it will affect the planned start date.
Source: Variety