After the Will Smith and Chris Rick incident at Oscars 2022, Apple TV+ is reportedly holding director Antoine Fuqua’s Emancipation until next year.

Many of Smith’s future projects appeared to be in flux. After he slap Chris Rock because of an ill-advised joke made against his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.

Now, the film that was set to be Will Smith’s awards-season follow-up is reportedly being pushed to next year 2023

Emancipation, an action-drama in which Smith stars as Peter, a man who escapes slavery, has been delayed from its expected fall 2022 release date to sometime in 2023.

Directed by Antoine Fuqua, the film was expected to be a repeat awards contender for both Smith, and distributor Apple, hot off its best-picture win for CODA.

An official release date had not been announced, but “it’s an unspoken truth” that Emancipation will be shifted off the 2022 schedule.

Netflix also reportedly cancelled its sequel to 2017’s Bright, although it’s reportedly unclear if that decision was made because of the Oscars slap.

Smith was spotted in India and a rumour sparked that he “has been going to therapy after the Oscars incident.”

Smith was also reportedly given 40 pages of script for an upcoming fourth installment to the Bad Boys franchise, but Sony has opted to remove.

While IMDb lists plenty of Smith projects in various states of production, Emancipation was the lone film the actor had on his 2022 slate.