You figure a project like MEMPHIS, the one about Martin Luther King from director Paul Greengrass might take some time, but it’s been sort of hanging around for awhile.
There’s finally some movement due to the possible casting of Forest Whitaker as Dr. King. The film will be shot “docu-style” in a manner similar to how UNITED 93 was filmed. MEMPHIS was set up at Universal but it didn’t pan out due to scheduling and financing. Greengrass and producer Scott Rudin then just decided to go the indie route.
King’s family is apparently opposed to the biopic and are setting up their own project over at Dreamworks.
The story will follow, “Dr. King’s final days as he struggles to balance his personal life and the civil rights movement while he organizes what ends up being his last protest march in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was assassinated by James Earl Ray. Simultaneously, the FBI, which had been wiretapping King before his death, leads an intense manhunt for his killer. The script finds Dr. King depressed about the state of both his marriage and that of war-ravaged and socially-divided America, as well the fear of being marginalized by a new generation of younger black leaders.”
It will be interesting to see what Greengrass does with this, as well as to see Whitker’s portrayal of King.