Even as Michael B. Jordan's career continues to skyrocket through turns in big budget blockbusters like next month's Fantastic Four and potential Oscar contenders including this fall's Creed, the actor still finds time to bless his talents into a few indies. The Fruitvale Station star signed on to frontline and executive produce Destin Daniel Cretton's (Short Term 12) latest Just Mercy.
Produced by Gil Netter (Life of Pi) for Broad Green Pictures and based on the memoir of the same name by Bryan Stevenson, Jordan plays the author in the film, a founder of the Equal Justice Initiative fighting to defend the poor and wrongly convicted in the criminal justice system. The movie is only going to cover some of his first cases, primarily Walter McMillian's, a young man sentenced to death in a day-and-a-half long trail for a murder he did not commit. Even though there were witnesses able to defend him at the barbecue he attended at the time, he was still falsely trailed.
Stevenson's book was released just last year, and it was named one of the best of the year by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Time magazine. It also received the 2015 Andrew Carnegie Medal of Excellence in Nonfiction from the American Library Association. The rights for the book were not available until Jordan and Cretton became attached. Just Mercy was sought over by multiple major studios, including Paramount and Universal, but Broad Green won them out regardless. They're apparently quite passionate about this feature, and they want to make this the best movie they can.
Variety got the exclusive. Normally such a project would be catnip for melodrama, but Cretton proved he held a firmly human touch, not delving into schmaltz without a reason to do so and earning the emotions before he would even consider doing this. He's also adapting the screenplay with Andrew Lanham, so this also isn't just him jumping into an awards vehicle either.
Before this, both screenwriters were developing an adaptation of a different memoir, Jeannette Wells' The Glass Castle, before star/producer Jennifer Lawrence dropped out. Lionsgate was where that film was coming together, but with Lawrence gone, it doesn't look like that's going to come together anytime soon. That's a shame.
Jordan finished shooting Creed just earlier this year, ahead of its November 25 release, and hasn't attached himself yet to any other project besides Fantastic Four 2. The fate of that movie depends on whether or not the August 7th release is a hit. Although the timeline is not certain yet, it's entirely possible Just Mercy could be Jordan's next movie on the roaster. No production plans were announced yet, and a timeline hasn't been scheduled yet.
Image courtesy of INFphoto.com