Less than a year after the scandal caused at the Oscars by the slap he gave to Chris Rock following a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair, Will Smith is making a comeback with the announcement of the upcoming release of his new film “Emancipation” on December 9, 2022.
It’s a historical film about slavery that will weigh heavily in this year’s Oscar campaign. Director Antoine Fuqua told Vanity fair, “For me this film is more important than what happened at the Oscars. Four hundred years in slavery is more important than it is epiphenomenal.”
The film Emancipation tells the true story of Gordon (Will Smith plays him), a slave who escaped from a plantation in Louisiana to join the Northern army during the Civil War in the 19th century. This highly anticipated film will be broadcast on December 9th on Apple TV+ and according to some American media this could earn Will Smith another Oscar nomination and he could even win it again, despite the scandal he caused at the last Oscar ceremony.
What does Will Smith think about all this? In a recent interview with journalist Kevin McCarthy, he said, “I would totally understand if people weren’t ready, I would respect that and give them their space to not be ready.”