Forest Whitaker To Executive Produce Angela Davis Biopic

Forest Whitaker has joined the Angela Davis biopic Angela Davis: An Autobiography, as an executive producer.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Whitaker and Nina Yang Bongiovi (the two have produced films such as Fruitvale Station and Dope together) has joined a team that includes producers Sidra Smith (producer of the 2012 documentary Free Angela) and Jeff Clanagan (Codeblack Enterprises CEO, which is also the same company that bought the rights to Angela Davis: An Autobiography); and executive producers Davis and her niece, playwright Eisa Davis.

No other information has been released about the film.

Aside from serving as an executive producer for Angela Davis: An Autobiography, Whitaker is also a part of Marvel's Black Panther film, which is slated to drop on February 18, 2018. Whitaker will portray Zuri, an elder statesman in Wakanda.

As for Davis, the iconic activist has done everything from introduce Solange for her Peace Ball performance, to offering words of resilience against Donald Trump's presidency, even making an appearance at the Women's March On Washington that happened earlier this year.

"The freedom struggles of black people that have shaped the very nature of this country's history cannot be deleted with the sweep of a hand. We cannot be made to forget that black lives do matter," Davis said. "This is a country anchored in slavery and colonialism, which means for better or for worse the very history of the United States is a history of immigration and enslavement. Spreading xenophobia, hurling accusations of murder and rape and building walls will not erase history."

"The next 1,459 days of the Trump administration will be 1,459 days of resistance: Resistance on the ground, resistance in the classrooms, resistance on the job, resistance in our art and in our music," Davis concluded.