‘Arc of Justice’: Russell Crowe Eyeing Lead Role
Early reports from Variety state that Russell Crowe may be eyeing the lead role in Arc of Justice, an upcoming courtroom drama film based on the Clarence Darrow-Ossian Sweet civil rights case.
If Crowe should decide to take the role, he would star alongside David Oyelowo. Oyelowo is already confirmed to play the role of Ossian Sweet. The film is set to be directed by Jose Padilha who also directed the Robocop reboot.
The film is based on the Kevin Boyle non-fiction novel Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age. It centers “on a racial incident in 1925 Detroit that put African American doctor Ossian Sweet on the stand for murder. His defense was funded by the nascent National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and led by Darrow.”
Crowe can be seen in the upcoming reboot of The Mummy, set to hit theaters on June 9th. David Oyelowo will appear in God Particle on October 27th. Read the synopsis of Arc of Justice below:
In 1925, Detroit was a smoky swirl of jazz and speakeasies, assembly lines and fistfights. The advent of automobiles had brought workers from around the globe to compete for manufacturing jobs, and tensions often flared with the KKK in ascendance and violence rising. Ossian Sweet, a proud Negro doctor-grandson of a slave-had made the long climb from the ghetto to a home of his own in a previously all-white neighborhood. Yet just after his arrival, a mob gathered outside his house; suddenly, shots rang out: Sweet, or one of his defenders, had accidentally killed one of the whites threatening their lives and homes.
And so it began-a chain of events that brought America’s greatest attorney, Clarence Darrow, into the fray and transformed Sweet into a controversial symbol of equality. Historian Kevin Boyle weaves the police investigation and courtroom drama of Sweet’s murder trial into an unforgettable tapestry of narrative history that documents the volatile America of the 1920s and movingly re-creates the Sweet family’s journey from slavery through the Great Migration to the middle class. Ossian Sweet’s story, so richly and poignantly captured here, is an epic tale of one man trapped by the battles of his era’s changing times
Micajah McGregor, Editor in Chief of FanFest.com and renowned entertainment journalist, graduated from USC with a focus on Journalism and Film Studies. With an MBA from The Wharton School, he began his career at “PopCulture Pulse” and has been instrumental in shaping FanFest into a prime entertainment news source. Known for his financial analysis of celebrity net worths, Micajah received the ‘Digital Editor of the Year’ award in 2018. He’s also an active blogger, sharing his passion for superhero films and ’90s TV. Contact him at [email protected] for engaging entertainment insights.
