Sonic the Hedgehog and Mixed-ish star Tika Sumpter has found her next starring role in the psychological thriller The Ancestor from This is Us writer/producer Kay Oyegun, which has just been acquired by HBO Max, according to Deadline.
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The film, based on a spec script from Oyegun on a story she developed with Sumpter, follows an African-American female med student as she finds herself in a “timely psychological thriller premise in the tradition of Get Out.” The spec script was reportedly the subject of a heated bidding war amongst various suitors with the fresh streaming service acquiring the script for high six figures.
Sumpter found her breakout in film with 2014’s Ride Along, starring alongside Kevin Hart and Ice Cube, as well as the James Brown biopic Get On Up, and followed both up with a sequel to the former and biographical romantic drama Southside With You as future First Lady Michelle Obama, for which she garnered critical acclaim. She had another big year in 2018 with the Tyler Perry written/directed Nobody’s Fool and Robert Redford-led The Old Man & the Gun and was most recently seen on the big screen in this year’s hit Sonic the Hedgehog adaptation alongside James Marsden and Jim Carrey.
Oyegun recently made an overall deal with 20th Century Fox Television after partnering with the studio on the hit NBC drama This is Us and recently worked with Lionsgate to pen an Angela Davis biopic, Warner Bros. for BPI, the comedy Assisted Living and The Come Up adaptation at Paramount, as well as the film adaptation of Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone at 20th Century Studios.
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The Ancestor will be produced by Michael B. Jordan and Alana Mayo’s Outlier Society alongside the banner’s Khaliah Neal, Oyegun and Sumpter, with Emily Gerson Saines attached as executive producer.
(Photo Credit: Getty Images)
