According to TheWrap, pop star Janelle Monae has joined Golden Globe winner Taraji P. Henson (TV’s Empire) and Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer (The Help) in Fox 2000’s Hidden Figures. Academy Award winner Kevin Costner (Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit) also stars.
Ted Melfi (St. Vincent) will helm from Allison Schroeder’s adaptation of Margot Lee Shetterly’s nonfiction book Hidden Figures: The Story of the African-American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race: An Untold Story, which will be published by William Morrow/Harper Collins in September of this year. The book is about a cadre of African-American women including Katherine Johnson (Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Monae). They were top graduates of historically black colleges, who were brilliant mathematicians helping NASA win the space race, yet were segregated from their white female counterparts. The feature will focus on astronaut John Glenn’s momentous launch into orbit, and his safe return. Costner will play the head of the space program.
Monae recently completed shooting Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, produced by Brad Pitt’s company Plan B for A24. Hidden Figures will be Monae’s first role in a studio movie.
Produced by Melfi along with Chernin Entertainment and Donna Gigliotti of Levantine Films, Hidden Figures will bow on January 13, 2017.
Leave a Comment