Spike Lee to Executive Produce Civil Rights Drama, SON OF THE SOUTH

Spike Lee is set to executive produce the civil rights drama "Son of the South," according to Variety. Lee's longtime editor BARRY Alexander Brown will direct the drama from his own screenplay.

"Son of the South" is based on the Bob Zellner autobiography, "The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement." The Alabama native and grandson of a Ku Klux Klan member is pulled into the center of the civil rights movement in 1961. He was inspired by Rev. Martin LUTHER King, Jr. and Rosa Parks, and invigorated by local black high school students marching to protest the murder of tenant farmer Herbert Lee.

Zellner became the secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and has continued as an activist for more than 50 years. His book was the winner of the 2009 Lillian Smith Book Award.

The film will begin principal photography in Montgomery, Alabama in March. Colin Bates ("Maggie"), Eve Pomerance ("As Good as Dead"), Bill Black ("Bayou Caviar"), Stan Erdreich, and River Bend Pictures ("Coming Through the Rye") are producing. The film's cast has not been announced.

Brown is up for an Academy Award for editing "BlacKkKlansman." Lee received Oscar nominations for best picture, director, and adapted screenplay for "BlacKkKlansman."

Lee and Brown first collaborated in 1986 on "She's Gotta Have It." Since then they've worked together on films like "Do the Right Thing," "Malcolm X," and "Inside Man."

Read the original article on Variety.

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