Apple paid $120m for the Will Smith-headlined Emancipation – but it’s been pretty much sitting on the shelf for months.
Lots of projects involving Will Smith hit the skids abruptly after what we’ll call ‘the incident’ at this year’s Academy Awards. To the misfortune of everyone else who worked on the production in question, one of those projects was already pretty much complete.
Entitled Emancipation, it’s a film that Smith stars in, and has been directed by Antoine Fuqua. The historical drama sees Will Smith as a slave on the run from his captors, after a story of his mistreatment hits the news.
The movie had been expected to be in the awards season conversation when Apple picked it up, paying – yikes – $120m for the privilege to do so. Then Smith did what he did, and the firm shelved the production. The chances of it seeing the light of day were looking on the slim side.
Now though comes a report from the New York Times that suggests it’s now open to the idea of giving Emancipation a run this coming December, that’d qualify it for the next round of movie awards – and next year’s Oscars. Nothing has been decided as of yet, but it looks like the film may yet get its moment in the sun.
Smith, now suspended from the Academy, won’t be winning an Oscar for this one, mind…
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