As Deadline reports, Chris Rock is finalizing negotiations to direct and produce a biographical film about the life of Martin Luther King Jr. The film will be based on that “King: One Life”a biography by Jonathan Eig published in May 2023.

“King: A Life” is the first major biography of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. in decades and the first to include recently declassified FBI files. In this insightful new portrait of the preacher and activist, the biographer gives us an intimate look at the courageous and often emotionally disturbed man who called for peaceful protests for his movement but was rarely at peace with himself. It sheds new light on the origins of the King family as well as MLK’s complex relationships with his wife, father and fellow activists.

King depicts a minister struggling with his own human frailties and bad temper, a citizen persecuted by his own government, and a man determined to fight for justice, even if it means fighting a matter of life and death. As he follows MLK from the classroom to the pulpit and to the streets of Birmingham, Selma, and Memphis, Eig dramatically recreates the journey of a man who reshaped American race relations and became the only modern Founding Father as well as the most mourned father martyr of the nation.

Steven Spielberg will executive produce the film, while Kristie Macosko Krieger will be the producer. In addition to countless documentaries, the life of Martin Luther King Jr. has been featured in various films. For example in‘Selma’a 2014 film by Ava DuVernay depicting the march King led from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965. The film, starring David Oyelowo, was nominated for Best Picture at the 87th Academy Awards.