“‘Emancipation,’ a slave drama directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Will Smith, will no longer be filmed in the state of Georgia due to a new voting law that was signed there by Gov. Brian Kemp in late March. ‘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,’ said Smith and Fuqua in a joint statement Monday. ‘We cannot in good conscience provide economic support to a government that enacts regressive voting laws that are designed to restrict voter access,’ they said. ‘The new Georgia voting laws are reminiscent of voting impediments that were passed at the end of Reconstruction to prevent many Americans from voting. Regrettably, we feel compelled to move our film production work from Georgia to another state.’ This is the first film to pull its production out of the state because of the legislation.”

“Since 2008, enticing tax incentives have turned the state a production hub for film and television, particularly for Netflix, HBO Max, Disney’s slate of Marvel movies and TV shows, and The CW. Georgia has also developed infrastructure for big-budget productions and is home to a tremendously skilled workforce of crew members, craftsmen and technicians. Hollywood has been debating how to handle this most recent Georgia situation. Some have called for a production boycott, while others have worried that pulling out of the state would do more harm than good. For the most part, studios who have commented on the new law have condemned it, but not committed to halting production” – NBC.