The best way to report this news is to swipe Jeff Wells’ paragraph about the dueling biopics, since he sums it up nicely. There will be two on Martin Luther King, Jr., but one directed by the talented Ms. DuVernay:
Deadline‘s Michael Fleming is reporting that Middle of Nowhere director-writer Ava DuVernay (congrats, Ana!) has been signed by Pathe UK, Brad Pitt’s Plan B and producer Christian Colson to direct Selma, a feature drama about Martin Luther King‘s historic voting-rights campaign. The effort culminated in the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the heart of which was recently undermined by a Supreme Court decision. Middle Of Nowhere‘s David Oyelowo (The Butler, Lincoln) will reportedly play King. But Selma is now up against Paul Greengrass and Scott Rudin’s long-gestating Memphis, about King’s assassination and the hunt for King’s assassin James Earl Ray. Which will come out first? Any way you slice it, the second Martin Luther King movie will have a little something extra to prove.
The difference is, I guess, that one is about the assassin and the other is about King’s voting-rights campaign, the same campaign that just got overturned by our biased Supreme Court, I’m guessing. Can’t wait!
