Will Smith to star in action thriller "Freeing the Black Slaves"

According to foreign media Variety, Will Smith will star in an action thriller "Emancipation", which is a work with a style close to "Apocalypse" and "The Revenant".

Written by Bill Collage (Assassin's Creed), Freeing the Slave is based on the tragic true story of slave Peter - a widely circulated photo of his whipped back. Peter was a slave on a Louisiana plantation when he was severely whipped by a plantation overseer, nearly killing him. Peter decided to escape to the North, where he joined the Union Army.

During a medical examination, Peter showed his back to the army doctors, who took photos of his scars. In May 1863, The Independent published a photo titled "The Scarred Back." The photo went around the world and was seen as evidence of the cruelty of slavery in the United States. It helped fuel the abolition movement and prompted many free blacks to join the Union Army to fight against racists in the South.

Peter the Black Slave

Directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, The Equalizer), and also produced by Smith, the film will be sold at the recent Cannes Film Festival online market and is scheduled to start shooting early next year.

"Freeing the Slaves" has a real historical background, but it is said to be an action thriller with rich emotions at its core, focusing on Peter's journey to escape from the hands of the slave owner. During the journey, he used onions to cover his smell, avoided the pursuers with dogs, and relied on his own strength and wisdom to wade through the swamp barefoot for 10 days...

"Freeing the Black Slaves" is expected to start filming in early 2021.