Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx is in negotiations to star alongside Michael B. Jordan in the upcoming the Warner Bros. film Just Mercy. The drama, based on the book Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, chronicles the real-life story of social justice activist Bryan Stevenson, who founded the Equal Justice Initiative. Like Stevenson’s book, the film will follow his first case, that of Walter McMillian, a young black man sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit. Despite being at a barbecue surrounded by dozens of witnesses at the time of the murder, McMillian was convicted in a trial that lasted a day and a half. He spent six years on death row. Stevenson took on the case, discovering that the prosecution suppressed evidence, ending up in McMillian’s exoneration.
Foxx was last seen in the film Baby Driver as Bats, and has several projects on the way in the coming months including the Blumhouse productions feature Spawn. Michael B. Jordan is producing with Gil Netter and Arthur Spector. Destin Daniel Cretton will direct.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter