Apple will release a movie with Will Smith, despite his slap at the Oscars

Less than a year after the Will Smith Oscar slap scandal, Apple announced Monday that its new movie “Emancipation” will be released in December, starring the actor.

Instead, Hollywood professionals were betting on a postponement of this historic feature film about slavery, due to the smell of sulfur emanating from Will Smith since his slap in the face of Oscars host, comedian Chris Rock, last March. A widely condemned slip, which earned him a 10-year exclusion from the ceremony.

Despite the controversy, Apple will release “Emancipation” in US theaters on December 2, ahead of its release on its Apple TV+ streaming platform the following week.

a public apology

This calendar allows the group to propose the film for the next Oscars, just after becoming the first streaming platform to win the statuette for best film at the last ceremony, thanks to its feature film “CODA”.

Will Smith has kept a low profile since last year’s Oscars, when he won best actor for his performance in ‘The Williams Method’, minutes after slapping Chris Rock, who had made fun of his wife Jada’s alopecia Pinkett Smith.

The former “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” publicly apologized shortly after the incident. In July, he also posted a video on social media, proposing a meeting with the comedian.

The 54-year-old actor has voluntarily resigned from the Oscar Academy. This banned him for 10 years at the ceremonies, but nothing prevents him from being nominated for the competition. His Oscar for Best Actor was not taken from him despite the scandal.

The Character of a Runaway Slave

In “Emancipation”, he portrays a runaway slave in the swamps of Louisiana, hoping to reach the north of the country, synonymous with freedom for African Americans in the United States of the nineteenth century.

The film was directed by Antoine Fuqua, whose film “Training Day” (2001) had won Denzel Washington the Oscar for best actor.

Originally, “Emancipation” was going to be shot in Georgia, but the production was moved to Louisiana after the approval of a controversial law by this southern state of the United States, which was intended, according to several NGOs, to discourage African-Americans from voting.