At the moment Lee Daniels is the toast of Hollywood, after his movie Precious set box-office records for a film in limited release (it made $100,000 dollars per screen on its first weekend, the first time that’s ever happened for a movie that got an initial release on more than 10 screens). However rather than going mainstream, Daniels is staying true to subjects that matter to him, as Variety reports he’s in advanced negotiations to direct Selma.
The film will look at the historic 1965 march in Selma, Alabama, which marked one of the most pivotal moment in the stuggle for civil rights in America. Well, technically it was three marches, with the first, which planned to go from Selma to Alabama’s state capital, Montgomery, stopped after only six blocks by police and state troopers, after Alabama governor George Wallace decided it was a threat to public safety and that all measures should be taken to stop it. Protesters were them clubbed, gassed and whipped, with the TV footage of the violence shocking the US and galvanising support for civil rights.
A second, symbolic march took place two days later, led by Martin Luther King Jr., which only went as far as the bridge where the previous protesters were stopped, because a court injuction prevented them going all the way to Montgomery. A week later the injuction was lifted and a third march set out, this time making it all the way to the state capital.
It was these marches and the public horror at the beatings of demonstrators that spurred Congress to start drafting laws that ended up with the Voting Rights Act, which for the first time explicitly gave African-Americans the right to vote.
Perhaps the odd thing is that while it’s a quintessentially American story, the film is being back by a British producer, Christian Colson, and a British production company, Pathe UK (although Brad Pitt is also involved through his Plan B production company). There have been surprisingly few films about the civil rights era, so hopefully Selma will slightly redress the balance and give new life to this turning point in modern history.