Just days after the project was announced, major casting news has come for 12 O’Clock Boys.
Jahi Winston and Teyonah Parris have been tapped as the leads and Will Catlett will co-star. Angel Manuel Soto is the director. Barry Jenkins wrote the initial draft for a script, with the rewrites done by Sherman Payne.
Set at Sony, the project hails from Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment with Pinkett Smith, her brother Caleeb Pinkett and Clarence Hammond producing. It is based on the 2012 documentary of the same name followed black dirt bike riders in Baltimore as they live life to the fullest while staying ahead of the police.
Per Deadline, the scripted feature film will follow Mouse “a young boy who wants nothing more than to be a part of the Midnight Clique, a tough group of Baltimore bike riders who rule the summertime streets. As he navigates the challenges of coming of age in a complicated world, he learns the hard way that the choices you make early on can change your life forever.”
After a nationwide search, Winston, who has garnered acclaim for his starring roles BET’s The New Edition Story, the Taraji P. Henson film Proud Mary and the canceled Netflix series, Everything Sucks!, has been cast as Mouse. Parris, who can be seen in this fall’s If Beale Street Could Talk and the Netflix thriller Point Blank in 2019, will play the pivotal role of Mouse’s mother, Teri, with the “mother-son dynamic” being important in the film. Catlett, who stars in OWN’s Love Is ___ and recurs on Black Lightning will play the character of Detective Rivers.
Filming for 12 O’Clock Boys will begin next month.
Deadline first reported the casting news.