Given the advent of social media and up-to-the-second release of news footage real life is becoming just as fascinating to behold as anything fictional. Just look at the 2016 election. Woody Allen has never made anything that hilarious and heartbreaking. But with the miniseries now more popular than ever, these true events are now finding their way onto the screen in documentary-style and dramatized pieces (the 2016 election will get the treatment). We now have the newest member of that club coming in the form of one of the most polarizing issues in recent memory – the Trayvon Martin case.
Variety got word that rapper Jay-Z and The Weinstein Co. have gotten the rights to two books about Martin and his death – Suspicion Nation: The Inside Story of the Trayvon Martin Injustice and Why We Continue to Repeat It and Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin – and will be partnering up to turn them into a film and documentary series. The plan is to have Jay-Z produce a six-part docu-series, while Weinstein will make a narrative film.
As for the two books, both follow the case which involved Florida neighborhood watch member George Zimmerman shooting and killing African-American high school student Martin after the two got into an altercation. Suspicion by Lisa Bloom covers the court case, while Rest in Power is by Martin’s parents and covers Trayvon’s life and the aftermath of his death, which helped spark the Black Lives Matter movement.
This pairing of the two projects reminds me of the releases of O.J.: MADE IN AMERICA and THE PEOPLE VS. O.J. SIMPSON. Not done in partnership with one anoher, the first is an absurdly comprehensive and astounding documentary epic about the man, while the latter is a dramatized version of the infamous murder trial involving him. Together they offer an unrelenting, engaging, all-encompassing look at the polarizing legend that is O.J. Simpson. Though not as infamous as the O.J. case, the Martin/Zimmerman case could still make for riveting TV, so I’m looking forward to seeing what this unlikely partnership can create.