Actor Denzel Washington and and actress Viola Davis
Hollywood, CA — According to HollywoodsBlackRenaissance.com, Oscar-winning actress Viola Davis and two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington, will star in a film adaptation of August Wilson’s Fences to be released next year through Paramount Pictures. The film is already in production, will be shot in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and is expected to be released in 2017.
Washington, in addition to starring in the film, will also be directing and producing the project with Scott Rudin and Todd Black. Executive producers and co-executive produces include Macro’s Charles King, Kim Roth, Poppy Hanks, Eli Bush, Bron Creative’s Aaron L. Gilbert, Jason Cloth, and Andy Pollack.
The Broadway Play
Back in the year 2000, Davis and Washington starred in a very successful 13-week run of a Broadway revival of Fences, and that production went onto get 10 Tony Award nominations, and won three awards for Best Revival, Best Actor, and Best Actress.
Why a 16-year delay?
The reason for the delay in gettingFences to the big screen has been, reportedly, that August Wilson, who penned the play, did not want to give his approval to a project that did not have a black director. Paramount at the time said that they would hire “the best director for the job” and approached several other directors, all of whom were white.
About “Fences”
The American classic play Fences was written in 1983 by award-winning playwright August Wilson, and explores the African American experience in a story about a one-time promising baseball player, Troy Maxson, who works as a garbage collector. He has a complicated, but loving relationships with his wife, son, and friends. Fences won a Pulitzer Prize in 1987, and went on to win a Tony that same year. Unfortunately, Wilson, the mastermind behind it, died in 2005.
For more details about the execuctive production team behind the film, visit www.macro.ventures