Mahershala Ali’s post-Green Book life now includes another new film role, arguably one that will properly test his talents as an actor.
According to Variety, Ali is expected to star in Fox Searchlight’s Solitary, a film he will also executive produce.
Ali is expected to play the main character, Albert Woodfox, whose 2019 memoir, Solitary: Unbroken by Four Decades in Solitary Confinement, My Story of Transformation and Hope, relates his 43 years in solitary confinement in Angola Prison in Louisiana.
According to the article, Woodfox was placed in solitary after he and Herman Wallace were convicted in 1974 of killing a prison corrections officer. His conviction was overturned in 2014 after over a decade of activists fighting for his release starting in the 1990s. Throughout his time in prison, both he and Wallace, both Black Panther Party members, fought for prison reform.
Woodfox was finally released from prison in 2016 after the prosecution finally accepted his plea of no contest to burglary and manslaughter. Sadly, Wallace died three years prior after being released from jail because of his terminal cancer diagnosis; he died three days after he was released.
Fox Searchlight bought the movie rights to Woodfox’s memoir and has now put the film in the early development stages. A screenwriter and director haven’t been hired yet. But the production team is already in place; aside from Ali as an executive director, Jamie Patricof and Anonymous Content are on board as producers.
Ali’s post-Green Book career also includes a starring role in sci-fi film Sovereign, written by A Quiet Place‘s Scott Beck and Bryan Woods and directed by Marc Munden.
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