‘Emancipation’ Review Embargo Lifts Very Late on Wednesday Evening [Updated]

UPDATED: Apple is screening Antoine Fuqua’s “Emancipation” in NY and LA. on Wednesday, just a day before Thursday previews begin for the film. The embargo will lift at 10PM PT on Wednesday following the premiere. This means that at 1AM ET, when most of the East Coast is sleeping, we’ll get our reactions for the new Will Smith movie.

Some are eagerly anticipating Anotine Fuqua’s “Emancipation,” which had screened for a very select few qover a month ago.

Earlier this month, Will Smith had a recent private screening of the film, but he invited only his celebs friends. The same thing happened with an October screening in D.C, which was mainly composed of African-American groups. Obviously these were all pre-planned events to build up buzz without having to deal with actual critics.

There have also been no advanced screenings set up for the film, anywhere. “Emancipation” is being released in 8 days, on December 2nd, and Apple has not shown us anything. Usually, that’s a bad sign.

Except … I managed to find someone who actually has some intel, an actual film producer, whom I’ve finally convinced to spill the details on “Emancipation.” The resulting reaction is, quite frankly, not promising. They don’t have positive feedback to relay to me.

I reworded their email, at their request, but this is the gist of their thoughts on Apple and “Emancipation”:

I can’t mention what the actual Apple strategy is concerning their awards season slate but I will tell you that they expected “Killers of the Flower Moon” to be their main horse until Marty got cold feet. This led them to have numerous meetings about what the plan was for awards season campaigning. They had originally hoped for Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” to crash the race but that plan lasted around a week. They finally decided on “Emancipation” with “Cha Cha Real Smooth” as their backup plan. What I will say is that for all the glowing enthusiasm Apple has had for “Emancipation,” a person I spoke to tells me it’s just not a good movie. Will Smith’s acting is very hammy and the direction incredibly choppy. I was told that it goes from one episode to the next in very abrupt fashion. I’m here to tell you this one isn’t going anywhere, Apple wishes it were but forget about it. Dead on arrival. In fact, that’s been the word around the campfire amongst industry people for a few weeks now. Apple should have dumped the movie in early 2023 and just embraced the suck.

Ouch. Brutal. I’m not ready to discount this one just yet. Especially given the themes of “Emancipation” which will surely resonate with some critics, right? There is no way it gets overwhelmingly panned. Of course, I always assumed that it wouldn’t be a critical smash, after all, this is directed by Antoine Fuqua, but there would surely be enough baity stuff in it to lure some people. Fact of the matter is that Apple are clearly hiding this one from press, I’d be extra concerned if they decided to screen it for us the week of release, which all signs are pointing to.