Category: Rumoured or Announced Projects

Sexual Healing

Jesse L. Martin as Marvin GayeStatus:  Development Status Unknown as of June 14, 2013
Release Date: TBA
Genre:  Drama/Biography
Rating:  Not Available
Studio:  Arclight Films
Director: Julien Temple
Cast:  Jesse L. Martin (Marvin Gaye),  Brendan Gleeson (Freddy Cousaert),  S. Epatha Merkerson (Alberta Gay), Clarke Peters (Harvey Fuqua), Dwight Henry (Marvin Gaye, Sr.)

Story: The movie chronicles late Motown legend Marvin Gaye’s self-imposed exile in Europe after years of battling drugs, domestic issues and label headaches. There, he was rescued by a promoter who helped Gaye record his biggest-selling album, “Midnight Love,” which yielded the monster comeback hit, “Sexual Healing.”  Gaye’s life was cut short the day before his 45th birthday in 1984, when his father killed him.

Details: The pic will center on the final years of Gaye’s life in London from 1981, when he was suffering from an addiction to alcohol and an allergy to the taxman, and how he was rescued by music promoter Freddy Cousaert and spirited away to his flat in Ostend, Belgium, to recover.

Various producers have spent years trying to make a movie about Gaye. Originally, the project was intended to cover a larger portion of his life but was refocused on his final years because of rights issues with his Motown-produced records.

As reported by Rolling Stone Magazine in March 2013, Lenny Kravitz dropped out of the long-anticipated biopic to be replaced by Law & Order alumnus Jesse L. Martin. Deadline Hollywood reports. Martin, was actually attached to star in a previous version of the film which was being produced by James Gandolfini back in 2008. No word was given for why Kravitz bowed out, though news that the rocker would be portraying Gaye reportedly led to objections from the singer’s son, Marvin Gaye III, who threatened legal action if Kravitz did not drop out. (Source(s): Black Actors; Movie Insider; Photo Credit:  ThisisRnB.com).

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Sweet Thunder

Sugar Ray RobinsonStatus:  Development Unknown (Script as of 1/17/17)
Release Date:  TBA
Genre:  Drama/Biography
Rating:  Not Available
Studio:  Specialty Films
Director:  Not Available
Cast: David Oyelowo, Danny Strong

Details:  Deadline reports that David Oyelowo is ready to play iconic boxer Sugar Ray Robinson in a biopic based on the Wil Haygood biography Sweet Thunder: The Life And Times Of Sugar Ray Robinson.  Moneyball producer Rachael Horovitz and Game Change scribe Danny Strong will produce, and Oyelowo will be executive producer.

According to Black Actors, the film will focus on Robinson’s early career and possibly the organized crime circles that controlled the boxing industry in the 1940s and 1950s. (Source(s): Deadline; Black Actors).

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Take My Wife

Status:  Development Unknown (Script as of 3/14/17)
Release Date: TBA
Genre: Comedy
Rating: Not Available
Studio: Lionsgate Films
Director: TBA
Cast: Tyler Perry
Dwayne Johnson
Story:  A recently divorced man attempts to find his ex-wife a new man in order to avoid paying alimony, but in the process, he falls in love again and then must compete for his ex-wife’s affection. (Source: Movie Insider)

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Toussaint

Status:  Development Status – Script as of 9/17/17
Release Date:  TBA
Genre:  Biography
Rating:  Not Available
Studio:  Louverture Films
Director:  Danny Glover
Cast: TBA
Story:  Haitian revolution hero Toussaint L’Ouverture led one of the few successful slave uprisings in history. The slaves defeated French, Spanish and British armies and established the first independent Black republic, naming L’Ouverture president for life. He was captured and imprisoned by the French and died a year later.

Details:  As reported in The Guardian, on July 27, 2012, for more than 30 years, Glover has been trying to make a biopic about the leader of the Haitian revolution. True, the story of L’Ouverture has been told before, notably in a play by CLR James that was staged in London’s West End in 1936 starring Paul Robeson, and more recently in a French TV series starring Haitian actor, Jimmy Jean-Louis.  But Glover believes his treatment will be the first to “have the epic scale these events require.”

But when will we see this directorial debut?  In 2006, Glover assembled a cast including Wesley Snipes, Angela Bassett, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Mos Def, and planned to shoot his film in South Africa and Venezuela, thanks to $18m from one of Glover’s heroes, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. Six years on, filming has not started. “We’ll get the film done,” says Glover. “We came so close so many times, you could almost taste it, man. We came that close and we’re going to do it.” (Source: Shadow and Act).

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Tulia

Status:  Delayed
Release Date: TBA
Genre:  Drama
Rating: Not Available
Studio: Lionsgate/Lift Films
Director: John Singleton
Cast: Halle Berry (Vanita Gupta), Billy Bob Thornton
Story:  Pic centers on a lawyer’s efforts to expose a rash of drug convictions in rural Tulia, Texas, in 1999.  Adaptation of Nate Blakeslee’s book Tulia: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town, in which 10% of the black population of Tulia was incarcerated. The arrests did not produce drugs or money, causing attorneys and civil-rights groups to denounce the bust as racial profiling. The undercover agent who conducted the bust was indicted on perjury charges; most of the 46 arrestees were eventually pardoned by Texas Governor Rick Perry.

Details:  According to Indiewire Shadow and Act, as of March 20, 2013, neither Berry nor Singleton is attached to this project anymore. (Source(s): Variety; Indiewire Shadow and Act).

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Uptown Saturday Night

Status:  Development Status Unknown as of June 3, 2014
Release Date: TBA
Genre: Comedy
Rating: Not Available
Studio: Overbrook Entertainment/Warner Bros. Pictures
Director:  Adam McKay
Cast:  Will Smith, Denzel Washington, Katt Williams (rumored)

Story:  Remake of the 1970s Bill Cosby-Sidney Poitier comedy. The original follows the story of two friends who have their wallets stolen at a nightclub. The next morning, they learn that one of their wallets contained a winning lottery ticket, and together, they set out to find it.

Details:  According to Variety, in an effort to fast-track its remake of the 1970s Bill Cosby-Sidney Poitier comedy “Uptown Saturday Night,” Warner Bros. has hired “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” helmer Nicholas Stoller to do a rewrite on the script.

Adam McKay is on board to direct, and Warner Bros. intends to develop the film as a starring vehicle for Will Smith and Denzel Washington. Smith and his Overbrook Entertainment partner James Lassiter are producing and have been developing the project for some time, but the producers haven’t been able to juggle the stars’ schedules and get the script to the right point. (Source(s): Variety; Movie Insider)

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