MGM, Participant and Macro have hired Rashaad Ernesto Green to direct ’68 inspired by the true story of Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the Olympians who raised black-gloved fists on the winners’ podium in support of Black Power and the broader human rights movement.
Billy Ray, whose credits include Captain Phillips, The Hunger Games, Shattered Glass and TV show The Comey Rule, will write screenplay. Green directed Gun Hill Road and his second film Premature won the 2020 Independent Spirit Someone to Watch Award.
Participant and Marco will produce the project with Stacy Sherman. ’68 will chronicle the lives of Smith and Carlos from their early days in athletics at San Jose State to Olympic medallists and activists at the 1968 Games in Mexico City.
Carlos’s nephews Airrion and Shaun McCoy will co-produce alongside Smith’s wife DeLois Smith.
“Olympian Tommie Smith has said that he and fellow Olympian John Carlos ‘had to be seen because we couldn’t be heard’,” said MGM motion picture group chairman Mike De Luca and group president Pam Abdy. “The courage and selflessness of these two extraordinary men, who quite literally put their lives on the line to stand up for what was right and true, has stood as a testament to the essential need to speak truth to power.”
Participant CEO David Linde said, “At a time when the right to peacefully protest remains under attack, it couldn’t be a more perfect opportunity to tell the story of these courageous men.” Macro founder and CEO Charles King added, “The moment when Tommie Smith and John Carlos took the podium and raised their fists created a ripple effect of change that resonates to this very day and now audiences worldwide will understand the true extent of their bravery.”
Participant will incorporate ’68 into its ongoing impact work dedicated to civil rights and social justice.
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