Deadline reports that Jonathan Majors, the breakout star from the 2018 crime biopic White Boy Rick, is currently in talks to star in the long-developed political drama The Trial of the Chicago 7 from The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin.
Majors has entered negotiations to star as Bobby Seale, the co-founder of the Black Panther party who was refused legal representation during the trial and was bound and gagged during the hearing, eventually earning a mistrial and being separated from the other six defendants.
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The true story follows protesters who disrupted the 1968 Democrat party convention with an anti-Vietnam war “carnival” that turned nasty. Demonstrators threw bricks, police responded with tear gas and the center of Chicago was engulfed in flames. Curfews only escalated the violence.
After the clashes, independent investigators blamed eight police officers and eight protesters including Hoffman, who had already disrupted the New York Stock Exchange with showers of fake money.
The police were not charged but the protesters were accused of inciting a riot. One was jailed for contempt, leaving the seven to fight the charges.
Steven Spielberg was, for years, planning to direct The Trial of the Chicago 7 himself, but the plan became to move forward without Spielberg behind the camera when production was originally scheduled to start in January 2014. Paul Greengrass (22 July) and Ben Stiller (Escape at Dannemora) were both in talks to replace Spielberg at one point, but nothing ever came to fruition with either party.
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Sorkin, who wrote the script in 2007, is just coming off of his directorial debut in last year’s Molly’s Game, which earned rave reviews from critics and audiences and was nominated for both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Adapted Screenplay. Cohen, who was originally attached in 2007 for the film, is just coming off of his Showtime political satire Who Is America? and is filming the espionage thriller The Spy for Netflix right now.
Majors only just got his start last year in the industry and has already been blazing a trail, having starred in the well-received western drama Hostiles alongside Christian Bale (Vice) and half of the acclaimed Showtime miniseries When We Rise, before co-starring in the crime biopic White Boy Rick alongside Matthew McConaughey (The Beach Bum) which, while having received mixed reviews from critics overall, saw him receive praise from critics. He will next be seen in the upcoming sci-fi thriller Captive State, which is set to hit theaters on March 29, 2019, the A24 drama The Las Black Man in San Francisco and the Jacob Latimore (The Chi)-led drama Gully, both of which are set to debut sometime in 2019.
The 29-year-old actor also scored the lead role in the upcoming HBO adaptation of the horror drama novel, Lovecraft Country, which was developed by Misha Green (Underground) and Jordan Peele (Get Out) and is currently filming in Illinois.
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