Searchlight Pictures Developing “The Defender” Film
Disney’s Searchlight Pictures is developing a brand new film “The Defender”, which will be directed by George Tillman Jr and will star Sterling K. Brown.
The film is based on E. Nicholas Mariani’s 2018 Black List script and tells the story of heroic lawyer Scipio Africanus Jones (who will be played by Sterling K.Brown”, who was a courageous attorney who risked his life and career to defend 87 men wrongfully accused of murder in the wake of the Elaine, AR massacre of 1919, when a group of Black sharecroppers meeting in a church about unionization were attacked by a posse organized by white landowners.
George Tillman Jr has previously directed the 20th Century Studios film “The Hate U Give” and Sterling K. Brown has previously starred in FX’s “American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson” and 20th Television’s “This Is Us”.
According to Deadline, Sterling Brown will also be producing the film with 21 Laps’ Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen. With E. Nicholas Mariani and Danielle Reardon also executive producing with Searchlight’s Dantram Nguyen, Katie Goodson-Thomas and Richard Ruiz.
No other details have yet been provided, such as when the film will be released or if it will be a theatrical or streaming exclusive.
Are you looking forward to “The Defender”?
