Apple TV+, Netflix no longer bidding on Will Smith biopic

Apple TV+ and Netflix are no longer bidding on a Will Smith biopic after the actor slapped comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars, reports The Sun.

The companies were competing to secure rights to the film about Smith’s life, based on his best-selling autobiography that came out last year. However, per The Sun, a sour says, “Netflix and Apple+ have quietly removed their bids for a Will Smith biopic and will instead relocate the funds and develop original ideas from new black actors.

As far as I know, Apple TV+ is still all in on the upcoming “Emancipation” starring the actor. Apple acquired Emancipation for US$120 in a bidding war. 

Here’s how the movie is described: Will Smith plays Peter, a slave who fled a plantation in Louisiana after he was whipped within an inch of his life. He had to outwit cold-blooded hunters and the unforgiving swamps of Louisiana on a torturous journey north. There, he joined the Union Army. The thriller is based on Peter’s true story and was inspired by the haunting photo of his bare back, scarred from the brutal whipping. The image, which came to be known as “The Scourged Back,” was published by The Independent in May 1863 and then in the Harper’s Weekly. It became indisputable proof of the barbarity of slavery in America, solidified the cause of abolitionists and prompted many free Blacks to join the Union Army.