Fox 2000 Buys Film Rights to Black Lives Matter movie, Amandla Stenberg to Star
LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 16: Actress Amandla Stenberg arrives at the premiere of Lionsgate's "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2" at Microsoft Theater on November 16, 2015 in Los Angeles, California.
At this point, it seems like the only thing to ask Amandla Stenberg is “What else?”
Fox 2000 has won a bidding war for Angela Thomas’ debut novel The Hate U Give with George Tillman Jr. coming to direct the film, and Amandla Stenberg to star in it.
The film rights for The Hate U Give, a young adult novel inspired by Black Lives Matter was sold to Fox 2000, Temple Hill and State Street, but in the end Fox 2000 won. Hunger Games actress Amandla Stenberg will start in the George Tillman Jr. directed film adaptation from a script written by Audrey Wells.
This “war” started once the book began circulating last week. Multiple studios were interested in this timely forthcoming book, which debuts Angela Thomas’ writing. The rights deal comes at the end of a 13-house auction in February that saw HarperCollins’ Balzer and Bray take the publishing rights.
Thomas’ story is about a 16-year-old girl named Starr who grew up in a poverty-stricken slum, but now goes to a suburban preparatory school. After she sees a police officer shoot her unarmed best friend, she is split between her two different world as she tries to tell her truth. Thomas began writing this story in 2011 while she was studying at Belhaven University. She even began to seek out her literary agent, Brooks Sherman, through Twitter to ask if a book based on the Black Lives Matter movement would produce any conversation. The title is based on Tupac Shakur’s tattoo, “T.H.U.G.”
Fox 2000 and Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey’s Temple Hill released the John Green adaptation The Fault in Our Stars, and have several options including Andrea Portes’ novel Liberty and Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira. Temple Hill is represented by UTA and attorney Ken Richman.
Audrey Hill, who released Under the Tuscan Sun, is represented by UTA, David Lonner, and Steven Warren.
Stenberg, who played Rue in The Hunger Games and voiced a character in Rio 2, is represented by UTA and Del Shaw.
Tillman, who previously bought The Longest Ride, Notorious, and Barbershop is represented by CAA. UTA also co-represented Angela Thomas with her publishing agent, Brooks Sherman of The Bent Agency.
We can’t wait until this movie and book come out.
(Photo by Gregg DeGuire/WireImage)