[imagesource: Apple]

Will Smith lost some major traction in the entertainment world after slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars.

He won the award for best actor for his role in King Richard that night, which would have seen his popularity soar even higher if it wasn’t for that dreaded moment when he chose violence.

He’s kept mostly to himself since then, besides a few apologies and jokes, but his efforts to regain popularity may well come to heed soon enough.

The trailer for the highly anticipated Emancipation has just dropped, and Smith’s performance as “Whipped Peter” escaping from slavery looks utterly Oscar-worthy.

Pity the man has been banned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for 10 years.

The film provides an intense look at all the atrocities committed in the antebellum South during the slavery era, showing the lengths that one man will go to reunite with his family and keep his mind safe from the scourge of his body.

Based on a true story, Will Smith stars as Peter, the man who became famous for the 1863 photos of “Whipped Peter” or “The Scourged Back” taken by the Union Army during a medical examination.

The photographs still stand as a poignant reminder of the atrocities inflicted by the institution of slavery, while Emancipation, drained of colour and mimicking the look of tintype photographs, delves into the story behind them, per Collider.

The shot comes in at the end of the trailer:

The film is produced by Smith and Jon Mone and directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, The Equalizer) from a script written by William N. Collage.

Emancipation will premiere in theatres on December 2.

Let’s see what this touching performance will do for Smith and his Hollywood comeback.

[source:collider]