The release of Emancipation will pose the biggest test yet of how eager moviegoers are for a movie headlined by Smith, an actor who has generated more than $6.5 billion in worldwide box office. Still, the brief exclusive run in theaters will also mean Emancipation, like Apple's best picture-winning CODA, will be seen primarily in homes.
Regardless, the streamer isn't shying away from its star. A black-and-white profile of Smith's face, with a chain around his neck, adorns the movie poster.
In the film, Smith plays a man named Peter who escapes from slavery in Louisiana. It was inspired by the 1863 photos of a man known as "Whipped Peter" that first appeared in Harper's Weekly showing a Union Army medical exam of a mutilated man.
The film had originally been planned to shoot in Georgia before Fuqua and Smith moved the production to New Orleans in response to Georgia's then-newly enacted laws restricting voting access.
Emancipation was shot in the summer of 2021. Until the slap, its release had been expected in 2022. Smith resigned before he could be banned by the academy, but remains eligible for an Oscar nomination.
"My actions at the 94th Academy Awards presentation were shocking, painful, and inexcusable," he said.
Since, Smith has largely stayed out of the public eye. In late July, he gave his most extensive comments about the incident in a video posted to social media in which he apologised to Rock, who had made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, Smith's wife.
