Ben Foster Joins Will Smith in Director Antoine Fuqua's EMANCIPATION

Ben Foster has joined Will Smith’s upcoming Apple TV+ film project Emancipation. The movie is being helmed by Antoine Fuqua and the film is described as a runaway slave thriller.

The film is based on the true story of a man named Peter (Smith), a runaway slave, “who escaped to the Union Army during the Civil War and outwitted bounty hunters over 10 days through the Louisiana swamps, masking his scent with onions. Army photos taken of Peter showing the scars on his back from being whipped were published in 1863 and became known as the ‘scourged back’ photos, which became a means to illustrate the cruelty of slavery.”

Foster stars opposite Smith, playing Fassel, “a man who doggedly pursues any enslaved person who attempts to flee to freedom, including Peter.”

The movie also stars Charmaine Bingwa as Peter’s beloved wife Dodienne. Gilbert Owuor plays Gordon, an enslaved man working at the same camp as Peter, while Mustafa Shakir plays Cailloux, a free Black man who also serves in the Union Army.

The script for Emancipation is written by William N. Collage and this sounds like an incredibly moving and inspiring story that needs to be told.

Apple reportedly picked up the film for somewhere between $105 million and $120 million. Production began on the project in early July in New Orleans.

Source: Variety