Will Smith's upcoming slave drama, Emancipation, will no longer film in Georgia due to the state's new "regressive voting laws".
The movie, which centers around a runaway slave played by Smith, will move its production elsewhere, the movie's director Antoine Fuqua, 55, and Smith, 52, announced on Monday.
In a statement from Fuqua and Smith released via Smith's media production company Westbrook Inc., the pair said that their respective companies were withdrawing the film production of Emancipation from Georgia "as a result of new voting restrictions".
They said the new law is "reminiscent of voting impediments that were passed at the end of Reconstruction to prevent many Americans from voting."
"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," Fuqua and Smith added in the statement.
"We cannot in good conscience provide economic support to a government that enacts regressive voting laws that are designed to restrict voter access."
"Regrettably, we feel compelled to move our film production work from Georgia to another state," they went on.
The media production company explains in the caption that the movie was scheduled to start shooting on June 21, with Smith portraying Peter, a fugitive from slavery on a harrowing journey north from Louisiana.
Per Deadline, the shooting location will likely change to Louisiana, where the events of the movie take place.
According to the BBC, Emancipation is the first movie to decide against the state as a shooting location since the passing of the new law.
The law has brought several changes affecting the state's 7.4 million voters, CBS News reports. There will be new restrictions on absentee voting, while access to early voting will be expanded. The most contentious element of the new law is the ID requirement for absentee voting.
Many Democrats and voting rights advocates were appalled by the voter ID provisions and the changes to mail voting as they say this will make it harder for some disadvantaged groups including minorities and those from poorer communities to vote.