By Ben Pearson/June 6, 2018 8:30 am EST
Here’s the official description of The Underground Railroad, which is based on Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2016 novel:
The Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a network of tracks and tunnels constructed in secret beneath the very Southern soil upon which they’ve been enslaved. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, a relentless slave catcher of mythic origin, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state-by-state, seeking true freedom in a heroine’s journey carved through the soil and soul of America.
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape.
Whitehead took to Twitter with a humorous casting suggestion:
Jenkins has a spectacular command of character and the ability to weave empathy and emotion into any project he touches – not just his movies, but his previous television work, too. He directed one of the best episodes of the first season of Netflix’s Dear White People, an episode that featured a heart-stopping and harrowing confrontation between a black college student and a campus security officer with a gun. It will be a huge treat to see him sink his teeth into a longform story like this.
On the film side, Jenkins is directing an adaptation of another acclaimed book: James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk. He wrote that script back in 2013 and it’s a passion project for him, so we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for more information about that movie in the coming days.
