Hugh Jackman and Precious director Lee Daniels tried to team up last year for a civil rights march drama, but that fell through due to lack of funding. Now they’re trying again, once more for a project about the civil rights struggle.
They’re both up for an upcoming adaptation of William F. Pepper’s nonfiction book Orders to Kill. The book follows the story of William F. Pepper (Hugh Jackman), an attorney and activist who argued that James Earl Ray did not shoot Martin Luther King. The movie will focus on the years that the writer started a campaign to prove that the US government was behind the murder. He believes that the government wanted Martin Luther King dead, due to his open opposition to the Vietnam War.
The script is being written by Hanna Weg, although there’s no news when it might shoot, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this one had difficulty finding funding too. (Source: LA Times)