I hope that somewhere someone read that headline, saw "Jamie Foxx" and "Black Panther", and just assumed he was the latest addition to the blackest superhero movie of all-time. But no, he's not signing up to join Marvel (yet). Foxx will instead play Black Panther Party leader Geronimo Pratt in Signal Hill, about the 1981 police brutality case involving college football star, Ron Settles. Foxx joins Anthony Mackie as Johnnie Cochran and Elizabeth banks as Mary Neiwender, an investigative reporter for the Long Beach Press-Telegraph.
The film will reunite Foxx with Taylor Hackford, who directed him to his Best Actor-winning performance in Ray. Pratt, who was also a Vietnam Vet, served 27 years in prison for a murder he said he didn't commit. Cochran worked to get his conviction overturned and in 1997 Pratt was freed when it was discovered the prosecution withheld evidence. Pratt was awarded $4.5M for false imprisonment.
Signal Hill centers on one of Cochran's early cases, when he became a legal superstar after representing Cal State Long Beach football player Ron Settles, who was found hanged in his prison cell shortly after being pulled over and arrested for speeding in Los Angeles County. His death was ruled a suicide, but Cochran convinced the family to exhume the body, which revealed that he was choked to death. The Settles family won $760K in a civil suit, leading to reforms and the police chief's resignation. [Deadline]
