Regina King Sells Directorial Debut Film to Amazon Studios

Amazon Studios has recently bought the rights to distribute Regina King’s directorial debut, One Night in Miami. It’s looking very likely that plans to release One Night in Miami later this year will seemingly happen before the awards season.

What We Know:

• Amazon successfully secured the winning bid in what was described as a “competitive bidding war” between multiple studios. Specific details on the sale have yet to be released, but inside rumors suggest it quite possibly may be one of the largest independent film sales in history. Despite rivals offering more money in the end, sources say that Amazon expressed a passion for the project and  filmmakers were inclined to work with them.
• One Night in Miami is written by Kemp Powers and based on his 2013 stage play. The premise of the film follows a young Cassius Clay in 1964, who later goes on to win the title of World Heavyweight Boxing Champion, under the name Muhammad Ali.
• The actual fictional plot itself starts off the morning after the big triumph against Sonny Liston. Clay and three other friends, activist Malcolm X, singer Sam Cooke, and football star Jim Brown, will be shown molding their own paths and being pioneers of their own destiny.
• Amazon Studios’ head Jennifer Salke explained how “One Night in Miami beautifully captures a significant moment in history when these great minds gathered and ultimately helped shape the conversation of what we know today as the civil rights movement”.
• King’s career on both the small and big screens is nothing shy of successful. She received an Emmy nomination for her performance on the hit HBO miniseries Watchmen. She’s also received credits for Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk and Seven Seconds on Netflix. As far as directing, King has had roles in some episodes of Scandal and This Is Us, but One Night in Miami will be her first time directing a feature film.
• According to Variety, Wu Calder and Keith Calder of Snoot Entertainment and Jody Klein of ABKCO will help in producing the film, while King and Powers have the roles of executive producers.

An announcement two weeks ago stated that One Night in Miami will have its worldwide debut at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.