The long-planned biopic of civil rights activist Martin Luther King appears to be on track, after reports emerged that producing studios Dreamworks and Warner Bros are aiming to attach actor Jamie Foxx and director Oliver Stone to the project.
With last year's Lincoln having re-established the credibility of large-scale historical biography, the director of that film, Steven Spielberg, is part of the production team on this. Foxx, who recently played an Obama-style president in White House Down, would now appear to have acquired sufficient gravitas for the role, while Stone has a record of making politically-oriented biopics, notably JFK and W.
The 50th anniversary of King's celebrated March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, in August 1963, appears to have given King-related projects fresh impetus. Aside from the Dreamworks/Warner Bros film, other planned films include Selma, focussing on another key protest led by King, and Memphis, a Paul Greengrass-scripted film about King's final days.
