Former Empire actor, Jussie Smollett, is set to work on his first movie as a director with a film adaptation of B-Boy Blues, James Earl Hardy‘s 1994 novel.
The movie will be produced through the actor’s newly launched production company, SuperMassive Movies. It is financed by the actor alongside Tom Wilson, a Cleveland-based investor who funds independent, LGBTQ+ and BIPOC films and co-produced by author Hardy, Frank Gatson, Sampson McCormick and Madia Hill Scott.
According to Deadline, the movie which will start production on Oct. 17 is a staple story within the LGBTQ+ community, follows the relationship of 27-year-old journalist Mitchell Crawford and 21-year-old bicycle messenger Raheim Rivers, who meet at a gay bar in Greenwich Village during the summer of 1993. Rivers is known as a “B-boy” or “banjee boy,” which is a term that originated in ballroom culture to describe someone with a tough exterior. However, as Crawford gets to know Rivers, he discovers that though he is a loving father to his 5-year-old son, he has a history of violence.
Smollett became famous for his as Jamal Lyon on Fox’s Empire which earned him a NAACP image award for best supporting actor. He also directed two episodes of the series- What is Done and Fair Terms but this will be his first time of directing a full-length feature.
The actor-cum-singer made a radical transformation in the public eye: from a familiar face to weekly viewers of the TV show to a lightning rod of controversy in 2019 after he reported that he was involved in an alleged racist and homophobic attack.
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He was charged of making a false report by the Chicago police and just last month he filed another lawsuit for the charges to be dropped against him.