Liev Schreiber and Jaden Smith join slavery film The Good Lord Bird

Jaden Smith received a lot of criticism for his performance in last year's bomb AFTER EARTH, but maybe the young actor will fair a little better in his newest project. Deadline is reporting Smith will star in THE GOOD LORD BIRD with Liev Schreiber. The film is an adaptation of the 2013 National Book Award winning James McBride novel of the same name, and McBride will produce the movie as well. James McBride also wrote the books The Color of Water and Miracle at St. Anna, and co-wrote RED HOOK SUMMER with Spike Lee.

Although THE GOOD LORD BIRD involves slavery, it's been described as a comedy, and won't be as heavy as something like last year's 12 YEARS A SLAVE. Some have also compared the novel to Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Henry “Onion” Shackleford (Smith) is a young slave who links up with radical abolitionist John Brown (Schreiber) in 1856 Kansas and travels the nation with Brown’s motley crew of freedom fighters. Story is told with a satirical bent through the eyes of Onion, who wears a dress and is at first mistaken for a girl, as he bears witness to Brown’s historic campaign and encounters the likes of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman en route to the bloody Harper’s Ferry raid that helped spark the Civil War.

I know Jaden Smith isn't the most popular teen actor right now, but THE GOOD LORD BIRD sounds pretty interesting to me, and I think it's the type of part and film the might help us forget all about Smith's AFTER EARTH. Plus, I really can't say no to something starring Liev Schreiber, so I'll be keeping an eye on this project as it develops.