'8' Playwright Dustin Lance Black to Pen TV Miniseries

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Dustin Lance Black will pen a semi-autobiographical eight-hour miniseries for the ABC network which centers on his strong advocacy for gay rights and his Mormon background. According to the report, the project will be "told from Black's perspective about his life growing up gay in a Mormon household to becoming a leader in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights movement."

The Academy Award-winning screenwriter began his career as a writer for the HBO series 'Big Love' which focused on the complicated life of a Mormon household. He went on to pen such feature films as "Milk," and "J. Edgar."

Black's play "8" has been staged across the country since its Broadway premiere in 2011 and has featured such stars as Morgan Freeman, Cheyenne Jackson, Christine Lahti, Rob Reiner, Matt Bomer, and Anthony Edwards.

Chronicling the historic trial in the federal legal challenge to California's Proposition 8, the production is an unprecedented account of the Federal District Court trial of Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the case filed by AFER to overturn Prop. 8, which eliminated the right to marry for gay and lesbian couples in California. Black based "8" on the actual words of the trial transcripts, first-hand observations of the courtroom drama and interviews with the plaintiffs and their families.

He is currently working on an adaptation of Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven, which follows the case of a mass-murder within the Mormon church, as well as an upcoming 'earthquake disaster' film from J.J. Abrams.