Chadwick Boseman just pulled a biopic hat trick — booking his third role as a real-life figure for “Marshall,” about the first African-American Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
Reggie Hudlin, producer of this year’s Oscar telecast, will direct the film from a script by Jacob Koskoff (The Weinstein Company’s “Macbeth”) and his father, trial lawyer Michael Koskoff. The film will follow one of Marshall’s earlier landmark cases before he ascended to the bench.
China’s Super Hero Films has fully financed the project, tapping prolific producer Paula Wagner (“Mission Impossible,” “The Last Samurai”) and her Chestnut Ridge Productions. Additional producers include Hudlin, Jonathan Sanger (“The Elephant Man”) and Super Hero Films’ Jun Dong.
“Thurgood Marshall was a man who took his life in his hands every time he came to a town to bring justice,” Hudlin said in a statement. “Marshall was a cowboy who used his law books as guns. He was the smartest guy in the room of any room he was in. But he wasn’t a punk and didn’t hesitate to throw a punch if the occasion called for it.”
Boseman previously played baseball legend Jackie Robinson in “42” and singer James Brown in Tate Taylor‘s “Get On Up.” He’ll next be seen as Marvel’s Black Panther in “Captain America: Civil War.”
Boseman is repped by Michael Greene of Greene & Associates and Management 360. Hudlin and the film are represented by CAA.