Spike Lee and Get Out filmmaker Jordan Peele are set to produce a feature length film about a real-life African-American detective who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in 1978, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The project, titled Black Klansman, will be produced and directed by Lee, with Peele also serving as a producer.
The movie tells the story of a black Colorado Springs police detective named Ron Stallworth, who joined and rose through the ranks of the KKK in 1978 by pretending to be a white man during phone calls while sending a white fellow officer in his place to attend KKK meetings and events.
Stallworth gathered confidential information and used it to thwart cross-burnings successfully and other would-be plots the hate group had planned to carry out.
HBO’s Ballers star John David Washington, the son of Denzel Washington, has been tapped to star as Stallworth in the crime thriller. Production for the film is expected to begin this fall.
The screenplay, adapted from Stallworth’s 2014 autobiography Black Klansman, was written by Lee, Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, and Kevin Willmont.
The project will be Lee’s latest race-related production, with a lengthy filmography that includes Do the Right Thing, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, and most recently, Chi-Raq.
Peele is coming off of his critically acclaimed directional debut Get Out, the Oscar-buzzy race thriller that grossed a whopping $252.4 million on a budget of just $4.5 million.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @jeromeehudson
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