Anthony Mackie has portrayed a good amount of historical figures, including Jesse Owens in Race, and Martin Luther King Jr. in All the Way. Now, the Captain America: Civil War star will play Johnnie Cochran on the big screen!
Deadline is reporting that Mackie will play the lawyer in a film about the 1981’s landmark Signal Hill police brutality case. He will also produce the film alongside Robbie Brenner, Kevin McKeon and Jeff Kwatinetz. Justin Chadwick is nearing a deal to be the film’s director. The script will be written by David McMillan.
Cochran and his story has been thrust into the spotlight recently due to the hit FX show, American Crime Story: The People V. O.J. Simpson. Courtney B. Vance portrayed Cochran in that mini-series. This movie will chronicle Cochran’s rise to fame through this case.
The Signal Hill case surrounded a Cal Long State Beach football player who was found hanging dead in his prison cell, following his arrest after being pulled over for speeding. While the police called it a suicide, Cochran and the player’s family got his body exhumed, and examinations showed that he was strangled to death.
