Will Smith shuns Georgia

Will Smith and director Antoine Fuqua have pulled their runaway-slave film from Georgia due to the state's new election law. Emancipation was set to start filming June 21. “At this moment in time, the nation is coming to terms with its history and is attempting to eliminate vestiges of institutional racism to achieve true racial justice,” Smith said. “We cannot in good conscience provide economic support to a government that enacts regressive voting laws that are designed to restrict voter access.” The project will likely shoot in Louisiana, where the story actually took place. Smith plays a slave who escaped a plantation after he was nearly whipped to death and later joined the Union Army.