‘Emancipation’: $120 Million Will Smith Epic Must Be Making Apple Very Nervous

With the Will Smith backlash growing on a near-daily basis, and the actor even quitting the Academy (before an inevitable expulsion would have happened), Apple TV must be quite nervous right about now.

The “CODA” streaming service invested more than $120 million on Antoine Fuqua’s slavery drama “Emancapation.” Smith plays a real life slave named Peter from a Louisiana plantation in 1863. The epic, which is already in the can, was set to be another Smith Oscar vehicle for the fall.

Now, we’re all wondering what will happen with “Emancipation.” Does it get rejected by the fall festivals, including TIFF and Telluride? How exactly does Smith do publicity for the film? It’s not like the controversy will just go away. The “slap heard around the world” is now a major part of Oscar history.

Smith is also about to shoot “Fast and Loose.” Will that movie now be put in the back burner? These are all pertinent questions that aren’t being asked right now. I’m guessing the greenlit “Karate Kid 2,” and “Hancock 2” are now not going to happen now.

It’s quite clear that Smith’s assault of Chris Rock has put his entire career in jeopardy, or at the very least in temporary hiatus. He probably needs some kind of kumbaya public moment with Rock, maybe an Oprah interview, but I doubt Rock will want to play along.

UPDATED: A few hours after this article went live, Netflix has backed away from “Fast and Loose.”