Fox is developing a new event series revolving around a racially-motivated police shooting. The project hails from “Love & Basketball” writer/director Gina Prince-Bythewood and will star Sanaa Lathan, who starred in the 2000 film.
The untitled event series examines the dangerous aftermath of a police shooting when an African-American cop kills a white teen in Tennessee. Lathan (“The Perfect Guy”) will play an expert investigator who digs into the case, alongside a yet-to-be-cast special prosecutor sent to the town by the Department of Justice. The duo must navigate the media attention, public debate and social unrest that accompany such a volatile case, as they seek justice before the divided town erupts into a race war.
The announcement of the project comes amidst of an uproar of recent media attention on racially-motivated police attacks, most notably the Trayvon Martin case, in which the African American teenager was fatally shot by George Zimmerman. The Fox project, however, features a race-flipped scenario with a white teen being killed by a black cop.
Prince-Bythewood, along with Reggie Rock Bythewood, will serve as writers and exec producers on the 20th Century Fox project, which will be directed by Prince-Bythewood. Brian Grazer and Francie Calfo will also exec produce. Prince-Bythewood’s Undisputed Cinema and Imagine Television will also produce.
The event series reunites Lathan and Gina Prince-Bythewood, who worked together “Love & Basketball.” Prince-Bythewood and Bythewood also worked together on “Beyond the Lights.”
article by Elizabeth Wagmeister via Variety.com
The untitled event series examines the dangerous aftermath of a police shooting when an African-American cop kills a white teen in Tennessee. Lathan (“The Perfect Guy”) will play an expert investigator who digs into the case, alongside a yet-to-be-cast special prosecutor sent to the town by the Department of Justice. The duo must navigate the media attention, public debate and social unrest that accompany such a volatile case, as they seek justice before the divided town erupts into a race war.
The announcement of the project comes amidst of an uproar of recent media attention on racially-motivated police attacks, most notably the Trayvon Martin case, in which the African American teenager was fatally shot by George Zimmerman. The Fox project, however, features a race-flipped scenario with a white teen being killed by a black cop.
Prince-Bythewood, along with Reggie Rock Bythewood, will serve as writers and exec producers on the 20th Century Fox project, which will be directed by Prince-Bythewood. Brian Grazer and Francie Calfo will also exec produce. Prince-Bythewood’s Undisputed Cinema and Imagine Television will also produce.
The event series reunites Lathan and Gina Prince-Bythewood, who worked together “Love & Basketball.” Prince-Bythewood and Bythewood also worked together on “Beyond the Lights.”
article by Elizabeth Wagmeister via Variety.com
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It sounds like a great project that will satisfy the appetites of Fox News viewers, but most black boys and young men of color, need a formal dialogue between this nation’s police and youth who are racially profiled daily.
So typical of Fox to “flip” the story and make it irrelevant using prized talent from the Black community.
Thank you both for your comments – we appreciate you sharing your opinions and concerns in regards to what will obviously hot-button subject matter. Perhaps, however, you will be encouraged to know two things: 1)Fox Network and Fox News, although under the same corporate umbrella, are two entirely different divisions under different leadership. The conservative nature of the news division does not in any way direct or govern the entertainment division. 2) Gina Prince-Bythewood, in her 20-year-plus career in Hollywood, has always marched to her own drum, written and directed material created by her (with the exception of “Secret Life of Bees”, which she adapted for the screen), and would not participate in a project that she wasn’t in control of creatively. Thus, we believe her latest project will be nothing short of complex, nuanced and artful exploration of race relations.
[…] and with husband, Reggie Rock Bythewood, she is executive producing the 10-hour event series Shots Fired for Fox, Imagine Television and Undisputed Cinema. Mbatha-Raw most recently starred […]