*“Get Out” stars Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield are in talks to star in Ryan Coogler’s “Jesus Was My Homeboy,” a movie about the assassinated Black Panther activist Fred Hampton.
Coogler has teamed up with Charles D. King’s Macro, the production company behind “Fences,” “Mudbound” and “Sorry to Bother You,” to produce the film for Warner Bros, with Shaka King (“Newlyweeds”) on board to direct and produce from a script he wrote with Will Berson (“Sea Oak”), per The Wrap.
According to THR, “Jesus Was My Homeboy” will look at the rise and death of Hampton through O’Neal’s perspective.
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viaThe Wrap:
The film will explore how the FBI infiltrated one of the most iconic resistant groups in American history, the psychology of their informant and the assassination of a young political leader who died at the age of only 21.
Hampton was a respected grass-roots civil rights activist who rose to chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party and deputy chairman of the national BPP. The FBI ultimately marked him a threat and in 1969, Hampton and fellow Panther Mark Clark were killed during a raid by a tactical unit carrying out orders from the Chicago Police Department and the FBI. O’Neal was the man who provided the FBI with detailed plans of Hampton’s apartment.
Hampton and Clark’s deaths were initially ruled justifiable homicides and the police claimed the Panthers had initiated hostilities, but a number of investigations pointed to state-sponsored assassination and subsequent civil lawsuits led to settlements by law enforcement and Illinois’ Cook County.
Coogler previously confirmed that he’s preparing to write and direct the sequel to Marvel’s “Black Panther.”
