Tika Sumpter has joined the cast of Universal’s James Brown biopic, Get On Up.
Sumpter has signed up to play Yvonne Fair, a singer in Brown’s touring show, James Brown Revue, who recorded his classic I Got You (I Feel Good).
Earlier this week, Universal moved up the release date of Get On Up from October 17, 2014 to August 1, 2014, taking over the slot previously reserved for its 50 Shades Of Grey film adaptation, which has now been pushed to February 13, 2015.
Get On Up will compete with Disney’s wide release of its adaptation of Guardians of the Galaxy on that August 1, 2014 weekend.
Get On Up stars Chadwick Boseman (as James Brown), Jill Scott, Dan Aykroyd, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Lennie James and Keith Robinson in the Tate Taylor-directed film.
Shooting on the project has begun, in Mississippi, with Brian Grazer producing alongside Mick Jagger, for Universal Pictures.
Promising a warts and all telling of Brown’s life story on film, the screenplay was penned by Jez Butterworth & John-Henry Butterworth (they wrote the script for Fair Game, the Naomi Watts and Sean Penn film).
