Arc of Justice: Russell Crowe Eyes Role Opposite David Oyelowo

Russell Crowe is in talks to join David Oyelowo in the adaptation of Arc of Justice

Russell Crowe (Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind) is in negotiations to co-star with David Oyelowo (Selma, Lee Daniels’ The Butler) in the upcoming film Arc of Justice for the Mark Gordon Company, according to Variety. Jose Padilha (Narcos) will direct the film, written by Max Borestein and Rodney Barnes. The film is based on the 2004 book by Kevin Boyle, “Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age.” The book tells the true story of a racial incident in Detroit in 1925 involving African American doctor Ossian Sweet (Oyelowo). He was charged with murder, and famous lawyer Clarence Darrow took on the case. The book won the 2004 National Book Award for Nonfiction.

The official description of the book, published by Ohio State University, reads as follows: 

“In 1925, Detroit was a smoky swirl of jazz and speakeasies, assembly lines and fistfights. The advent of automobiles had brought workers from around the globe to compete for manufacturing jobs, and tensions often flared with the KKK in ascendance and violence rising. Ossian Sweet, a proud Negro doctor-grandson of a slave-had made the long climb from the ghetto to a home of his own in a previously all-white neighborhood. Yet just after his arrival, a mob gathered outside his house; suddenly, shots rang out: Sweet, or one of his defenders, had accidentally killed one of the whites threatening their lives and homes. And so it began-a chain of events that brought America’s greatest attorney, Clarence Darrow, into the fray and transformed Sweet into a controversial symbol of equality.”

Gordon, Borenstein, Hawk Koch, and Matt Jackson are producing Arc of Justice, with Josh Clay on board for the Mark Gordon Company. Are you guys interested in seeing this story on film? What do you think of the casting? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or tweet us @ComingSoonnet.

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