The domestic rights to The Best of Enemies starring Taraji P. Henson have been picked up by STXfilms.

The film, which also stars Sam Rockwell, is based on Osha Gray Davidson’s 2007 book The Best of Enemies: Race and Redemption in the New South and focuses on the unexpected relationship between civil rights activist Ann Atwater (Henson) and local Ku Klux Klan leader C.P. Ellis (Rockwell).

As we reported in 2017, the film is set in the 1960s and early 1970s during the debate about public school integration in Durham, North Carolina. “Their encounters were charged with hatred and suspicion. But eventually, in an amazing set of transformations, each came to see how the South’s rigid power structure had exploited the other, and they would form a friendship that flourished within an explosively bigoted environment at the time.” The film’s script is written by film producer Robin Bissell, who also directed.

The Best of Enemies will also star Babou Ceesay (who is currently starring on AMC’s Into the Badlands), who will play Bill Riddick, who convinced Atwater and Ellis to work together. Also starring are Wes Bentley, Anne Heche, Bruce McGill, John Gallagher Jr. and Nick Searcy.

The Best of Enemies‘ producers include Tobey Maguire and Matthew Plouffe from their Material Pictures banner, as well as Bissel, Danny Strong, Dominique Telson, Matt Berenson and Fred Bernstein. Executive producers include Jeremiah Samuels and Rick Jackson.

John Gallagher Jr.

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