Angelique Jackson Searchlight Pictures has acquired script rights to “The Defender,” starring Sterling K. Brown as the pioneering lawyer Scipio Africanus Jones, who risked his life and career to defend the Elaine Twelve — a group of 12 Black sharecroppers sentenced to death for allegedly being involved in the murder of a white man during the Elaine Massacre of 1919 in Arkansas.George Tillman Jr. (“The Hate U Give”) is attached to direct, with 21 Laps’ Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen on board to produce.
The three-time Emmy-winning actor will also produce the project under his Indian Meadows banner, founded in 2018 with the mission to “champion diversity through the development and production of entertaining, educational and inclusive projects.”.
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