ABC is developing a civil rights series titled Women of the Movement (working title).
From Jay-Z, Will Smith and Kapital Entertainment, a hefty penalty is attached to the project, per Deadline. Marissa Jo Cerar is the writer.
The first season of the potential series would focus on Mamie Till, being inspired by the book, Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement by Devery S. Anderson.
Cerar is also an executive producer on the roster alongside the likes of Jay Brown and Ty Ty Smith of Roc Nation, Will Smith and James Lassiter of Overbrook Entertainment, Aaron Kaplan and Dana Honor for Kapital Entertainment and more.
The first season of the series was once set as a miniseries at HBO from Roc Nation, Overbrook and Kapital Entertainment. Steven Caple Jr., the director of Creed 2, was slated to write that project. The report from Deadline says that after the project departed HBO it was reworked to focus on multiple women figures in the movement, and Cerar was tapped to rework it. Kaplan first pitched the project to Disney+, but Disney Television Studios and ABC Entertainment head Dana Waldan pegged it for ABC, wanting to bolster their limited series field with popular programming like the original Roots, which aired on the network in 1977.
There have also been several other Till projects in development over the past several years. Taraji P. Henson also said she was starring in a Mamie Till film directed by John Singleton, but nothing ever came of the project before Singleton’s death.
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