Antoine Fuqua & Will Smith to Team Up on Runaway Slave Thriller ‘Emancipation’—Based On Famous ‘Scourged Back’ Photo

According to Deadline, a new scripted action thriller, starring Will Smith, and directed by Antoine Fuqua, is set to become one of the hottest film packages in the virtual Cannes market. The film is based on a true story that follows runaway slave Peter, who escaped his masters and survived barefoot, for 10 days, in the Louisiana swamp. He then traveled North to join the Union Army. During an Army medical exam, Peter revealed the scars on his back from a brutal whipping that almost claimed hid life. Photos were taken of his scars that went on to be published in both the Independent and Harper’s Weekly in 1863. This photo then came to be known as “the scourged back,” it circulated around the world and revealed the barbarity of slavery in America.

“The writer, Bill Collage, really went deep into it,” Fuqua told Deadline. “Historical documents and also information from Peter’s own diaries that he kept. It’s based on historical fact. When I read the script, I thought, what an amazing journey, a heartbreaking and heart-racing film to have an opportunity to make. It’s rare to have a film that, on the entertainment side, has action that I’ve never seen before, real action, a guy running through the swamps for his life, wrestling with alligators and snakes, being chased by hounds, then joining the Civil War, fighting against the Confederate army. Not for revenge – it’s not a revenge film – but just to get home to his family, and he was fighting for freedom. Just on that basis alone, I thought the film should be made on an epic scale.”

Fuqua is finishing up working on the drama ‘Infinite,’ and Smith was previously shooting King Richard until its production was paused by COVID-19. The two men will finish their previous obligations, but hope  to begin production early 2021.