(AllHipHop News) The race to make the definitive Martin Luther King motion picture of the 21st Century continues. Today (February 26th), Deadline reports that Oprah Winfrey has attached herself to an upcoming film inspired by Martin Luther King’s voting rights campaign.
According to reports, Ava Duvernay has been tapped to direct the film as well as rewrite the script and Paramount Pictures are currently seeking national distribution for the film. Lee Daniels was originally slated to direct the film back in 2010 until he was decided to direct The Butler instead due to Selma taking too long to acquire the requisite financing.
Selma will focus on King’s 1965 voting rights campaign which led to the August 6th 1965 enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by President Lyndon B Johnson. King’s campaign included three attempts at organizing a march from Selma, Alabama to Alabama’s state capital in Montgomery. The first two attempts were stopped by police and governmental interference with the first one occurring on March 7th, 1965, a date referred to as Bloody Sunday due to the police brutality on the protesters. The third attempt was successful on March 25th, 1965.
This is not the first Martin Luther King Jr biopic attempting to get off the ground. Oliver Stone recently left the production of the DreamWorks and Warner Bros Martin Luther King Jr biopic after his script rewrite was rejected. According to Stone, the great civil rights’ leader’s estate would not approve of his script.
No word on if Martin Luther King Jr’s estate has looked over the script for the Oprah Winfrey-produced Selma.