EGOT winner Viola Davis will produce and star in “The Fighting Shirley Chisholm” under her new deal with Amazon Studios.
She’ll produce the project alongside her husband, Julius Tennon, through their JuVee Productions company.
Here’s the scoop via Deadline:
Amazon studios acquired the title in what we understand was a fierce bidding war, with Homegrown Pictures’ Stephanie Allain (Hustle & Flow, Dear White People) and Mel Jones producing with JuVee.
Maggie Betts (Novitiate) will direct the screenplay written by Emmy-nominated writer Adam Countee (Silicon Valley, Community, Mindy Project).
Countee had long been interested in telling Chisholm’s story and his research led him to write the feature script on spec about the trailblazing congresswoman who never backed down as her bid drew ridicule and bigoted backlash. Chisholm ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1968 from New York’s 12th congressional district and became the first black woman elected to Congress. In January 1972 she announced her presidential bid in a Baptist church in her Brooklyn district. That election ended with George McGovern getting the Democratic nomination and losing to incumbent Republican President Richard Nixon.
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