ABC/Randy HolmesJay-Z and Will Smith are teaming up with Kapital Entertainment to develop a civil rights anthology series for ABC.
According to Deadline, the series, currently titled Women of the Movement, will chronicle the movement through the stories told by the courageous women behind it.
The first episode of the eight-episode series centers on Emmet Till‘s mother, Mamie Till, who devoted her life to seeking justice for her son following his brutal murder in the Jim Crow South in 1955. The episode will be based on Devery S. Anderson‘s book Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement.
The Handmaid’s Tale writer Marissa Jo Cerar, will serve as writer and executive producer of the project.
It’s important to note that the first season of the series was originally going to be an HBO miniseries from Roc Nation, Smith’s Overbrook production company and Kapital Entertainment. At that time, Creed 2 director Steven Caple Jr. was attached to write it. But Deadline reports that after the project fell through at HBO, it was reworked to focus on female figures in the movement, and Cerar was brought in to rework it.
This isn’t the first project related to Emmet Till in the works. As previously reported, Taraji P. Henson has said she’s starring in a Mamie Till film directed by John Singleton, but since Singleton’s death, there hasn’t been an update as to the status of the project.
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