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EXCLUSIVE: Universal Pictures will make Memphis, the drama about the assassination of Martin Luther King written and directed by Paul Greengrass. The picture is being produced by Scott Rudin, the Oscar-nominated producer of Best Picture candidates The Social Network and True Grit. Production on the film is slated to begin in June. It reunites the studio with Greengrass, who last made The Green Zone for Uni and who withdrew from making a fourth installment of The Bourne Identity. Even though that last picture came in at a high budget and didn’t succeed at the box office, Greengrass turned in two hit Bourne sequels and the Oscar-nominated United 93.
Memphis steps in front of several pictures that were being mobilized about Dr. King. There is a Ronald Harwood-scripted DreamWorks project that has the backing of King’s heirs, and Selma, an indie that Lee Daniels was working on with funding from The Weinstein Company (that project seems to have stalled completely), and Harpo’s Oprah Winfrey and Kate Forte have an HBO deal for America: In the King Years, a 7-hour miniseries based on the seminal Taylor Branch book series, being adapted by Robert Schenkkan
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I hope Greengrass will show how the FBI framed James Earl Ray. Hoover’s FBI were the real killers they were determined to silence King and they got away with it. Bastards.
It’s a brilliant script. You won’t be disappointed.
I hope Ron Meyer can produce more hits now that Jeff Zucker is gone.
I really hope Greengrass returns to Bourne one more time. Universal is being so nice to this guy and even let him make an expensive war movie (Green Zone) that they knew wasn’t going to be a hit just so this guy can make another Bourne movie. Now its Universal again helping Greengrass make Memphis just to make this guy happy. Everyone wants another Bourne movie with Matt Damon and Damon ain’t doing it unless Greengrass does it. Hopefully after Memphis, Greengrass can wake up and realize how much fans want another Bourne flick with him and Damon.
Another Bourne movie = zzzZZzzz…
Greengrass made the right move by moving away from that. I can’t imagine what that does to an artist to be making movies in the same universe over and over again. I’d rather he stay fresh and do something like this.
Green Zone was a letdown, and he took hit for that, but I’m glad he’s making something in the vein of The Murder of Stephen Lawrence/Bloody Sunday/U93 – the stuff I love the most from him.
Besides, if we’re going to be recreating the last days in the life of someone as history-making as MLK, I’ll take a studio picture written and directed by Paul Greengrass over a Lee Daniels indie or Oprah miniseries.
In short, hell yeahs all around for this one.
Will it be shot in Memphis?
If this is done in the typical (great) Greengrass fashion, incredibly kinetic, it’s going to be kind of eerie.
That is exactly what I was thinking. Kind of like “United 93″
From a film narrative standpoint, his last days in Memphis is a great compact story that is engrossing and will work as a feature, rather than an epic life story that would need to be a mini-series to into any kind of depth. I hope the King family doesn’t sue, because MLK’s speech the night before he died was absolutely chilling.
I vote for Ving Rhames as MLK.
Ving Rhames. That’s pretty funny.
“Memphis”, the new movie, fulfills the role of agent provocateur-nothing more, nothing less.
Because in 2011, the US definitely doesn’t need another movie destined to racially polarize the US even more-if that’s possible.
Blacks will pay to watch their hero killed by a white man.
Whites will pay to watch a drama about an assassinated civil right leader.
Blacks will leave the movie theater hating whites even more.
And whites will leave the theater…well, who the hell knows what they’ll think.
Bottom line: “Memphis” will capitalize on the shooting of a black civil rights leader by a white man-just to make a movie buck.
There is absolutely NO moral justification for this movie, except to make money off King’s death and stir up the melting pot even more.
Show me a black person who won’t hate whites even more after watching “Memphis”.
The US never healed from the King assassination, even in 2011.
That crazed white man who killed a beloved fighter for social justice also killed any chance of long term racial harmony.
Our fragile society does not need a movie named “Memphis”…not now, not at any time.
Universal Pictures should be ashamed of itself greenlighting this cinematic agent provocateur.
You haven’t read the script and have no grounds for any of those claims. Please take your meds.
The above is a psychotic rant. I don’t know why any comments pointing that out are deleted.
“Show me a black person who won’t hate whites even more after watching ‘Memphis.’”
How? It’s a film based on a historical event. It’s not like anyone forgot a white guy shot Martin Luther King, Jr. Nobody’s going to watch the movie and think, “Wow, white people are mean. I never knew they were capable of this.”
Please grow up.
I read the script and trust me… This script makes a great case for the “white” side of this historical event. It’s a great script and I hope you’ll give it a chance for that reason when it comes out. If the script was all yay blacks and boo whites then I agree it definitely would suck but it’s smarter than that. Greengrass did some great work here.
Greengrass isn’t responsible for the success of the Bourne movies, Doug Liman is. Greengrass did make two good sequels with all his shakycam stunt. But I don’t know why people never acknowledge Liman in regards to the Bourne movies.
Because Hollywood doesn’t want to work with him anymore.
And because Doug only did the first movie. So you can’t really give him credit for the other two. Which were better.
Wonder if you’d be singing a different tune if Lee Daniels or Antoine Fuqua were directing this…
I seem to remember one Spike Lee making a film called “Malcolm X”, which last I checked didn’t paint whitey as too savory… And yet the so-called white man gave Spike $35 million (and a major studio release) to do so…
Just chill out, Rev. Sharpton, it’s a movie.
Michael Keaton sure looks strange…..
But if he can write a goode philm I’m all 4 it!
Is this going to be a Oliver Stone JFK-styled film or will MLK be a character?
If so, I nominated Lafayette from True Blood. Ving Rhames is too old.
Still, no actor can really do MLK justice.
I read this script from Greengrass and it was absolutely BRILLIANT! Can’t wait to see how it is received by audiences!!
By comparison the other MLK script “SELMA” floating around town with Lee Daniels attached sucked. Universal made the right choice.
Hi kendall……. how did you get a copy to read of the script of “Memphis?”
Nelsan Ellis would be great.
Chiwetel Eljofor’s time to step up to leading man material!!
I just watched Green Zone and I liked it. I liked the way they used actual vets back from war to play Matt Damon’s troops. Jason Isaacs is always great, and I really don’t know why this didn’t fare well at the theatres. I’ve seen a lot worse.