Dave McNary / Variety
Skyland Pictures and FireRock Bay Pictures are producing an Emmett Till movie based on the play “The Face of Emmett Till ,” Variety has learned exclusively.
Anthony Miller is producing for Skyland Pictures. Brynn Lucas and Michael Popek are producing for FireRock Bay . James Moll , who won a best documentary Oscar in 1998 for “The Last Days,” is attached to direct from a script by David Barr III and screenwriter David Scott Hay .
The play was co-written by Till’s mother, the late Mamie Till-Mobley , and David Barr III. Barr and Hay are also co-producing, while Nick Zuvic and Rose Spellman are executive producing.
“The Face of Emmett Till ” is the second movie in the works about the 1955 lynching murder of Till, a 14-year-old who was visiting relatives in Money, Miss., when he was tortured and murdered after reportedly whistling at a white woman. Till’s murder ignited the Civil Rights Movement .
Shatterglass Films and Chaz Ebert announced last week that they were developing an Emmett Till movie based on the book “Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America.”
Producers are planning to shoot “The Face of Emmett Till ” in Chicago and Mississippi in early 2016.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Barr said. “One of the greatest privileges of my life was working with that magnificent woman to tell her story. And to tell it right. The heart of the story is the love of a mother for her son.”
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