Jay-Z and Will Smith are re-teaming for a new HBO miniseries about the story of Emmett Till.
The rapper and actor will serve as executive producers on what is expected to be a six-episode miniseries for the premium cable network, reports Deadline.
Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy, was brutally murdered in Mississippi in 1955 for flirting with a white woman. Till reportedly spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant at a grocery store and may have asked her out on a date.
Till was murdered a few days later when Bryan’t husband and her half-brother confronted the teenager at a relative’s house, tortured him, and ultimately shot him in the head and dumped his body in a local river. The two men were later acquitted for the murder.
Till’s mother reportedly requested an open-casket funeral, and the resultant images of the teen’s brutally beaten body in newspapers across the country represented a tipping point in the emerging civil rights movement. August 28 marks the 60th anniversary of the teenager’s death.
Till’s story has been told on screen before, most notably in the 2003 PBS documentary The Murder of Emmett Till.
Joining Smith and Jay-Z as producers on the untitled project are Aaron Kaplan of Kapital Entertainment, Jay Brown of Roc Nation and and James Lassiter of Overbrook Entertainment.
Jay-Z and Smith previously worked together on the 2014 movie remake of Annie, and on the Broadway play Fela!
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