John Boyega Joins Kathryn Bigelow’s Untitled Detroit Riots Project

John Boyega joins Kathryn Bigelow’s Untitled Detroit Riots Project

According to The Hollywood Reporter, red-hot Star Wars: The Force Awakens star John Boyega has landed a role among the ensemble of Annapurna Pictures’ “Untitled Detroit Project,” which The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty‘s Kathryn Bigelow is set to direct. The feature will reteam the two-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker with screenwriter Mark Boal. Bigelow and Boal will also produce the Untitled Detroit Project alongside Annapurna’s Megan Ellison and Matthew Budman.

The Untitled Detroit Project marks Bigelow’s tenth as a director. The film is being financed by Annapurna Pictures with casting set to begin in March. Principal photography is then slated to follow this summer.

Although full details about the Detroit project are not being revealed at this time, the film is said to be a crime drama set against the backdrop of Detroit’s devastating riots that took place over five haunting summer days in 1967. Boal has been researching and working on the project, which explores systemic racism in urban Detroit, for more than a year. Although no studio is yet attached, a release date is being targeted for 2017, the 50th anniversary of the riots.

The project marks Boal’s first screenplay centering around domestic conflicts. His The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, both directed by Bigelow, were set in the Middle East. 

Boyega recently signed on to star in and co-produce Legendary’s Pacific Rim 2, and he is currently reprising his role as Finn in Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: Episode VIII. He will next be seen opposite Tom Hanks in The Circle. 

Does this Untitled Detroit Project sound like something you’d like to see? Let us know in the comments below and, as always, check back for updates on the film as they become available.

(Photo credit: WENN.com)

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