Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield are in talks to star in a hot package that that is sure to reverberate across Tinseltown.

The duo is set to star in Jesus Was My Homeboy, a film about Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton, which will be produced by Ryan Coogler and MACRO’s Charles D. King. Shaka King will direct the movie, which is set at Warner Bros. King also wrote the script with Will Berson. Sev Ohanian, Zinzi Coogler and MACRO’s Kim Roth and Poppy Hanks are executive producing.

Kaluuya would star as Hampton, and Stanfield would star as William O’Neal, who betrayed Hampton to the FBI.

This is the description of the film, according to Deadline, who broke the news: The film will follow the rise and untimely demise of Hampton as seen through O’Neal’s eyes. It will explore how the FBI infiltrated the Black Panthers, the psychology of their informant and the notorious assassination of the young political leader who died aged only 21. 

Hampton quickly rose to the top of the ranks of the Illinois BPP chapter and became the deputy chairman of the national organization. As he became more visible and charismatic, he became a target to the FBI and was killed along with another Panther, Mark Clark, in a controversial raid carried about by the Chicago PD and FBI. Though the deaths were first ruled as a justifiable homicide, further investigations took place, and some settlements were given due to civil suits. O’Neal, who gave the FBI the plans to Hampton’s apartment, died by suicide in 1990.

Stanfield just wrapped his role in Rian Johnson’s starry Knives Out ,and Kaluuya is filming Melina Matsoukas’ Queen & Slim. 

 

Photo: Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images,  Presley Ann/Getty Images)