Los Angeles: Former “Empire” star Jussie Smollett will be turning director with the upcoming adaptation of James Earl Hardy’s best-selling 1994 novel”B-Boy Blues”. Smollett will also produce the drama through his newly launched production banner SuperMassive Movies, reported Deadline.
Hardy’s book follows the tumultuous relationship between Mitchell Crawford, a 27-year old journalist, and Raheim Rivers, a 21-year-old bike messenger and B-boy (banjee boy). The two men meet in a gay bar in Greenwich Village in the summer of 1993. They fall in love, but their world — dominated by homophobia and violence — threatens to tear them apart. The author will also produce the feature alongside Tom Wilson, Frank Gatson, Sampson McCormick and Madia Hill Scott.
Smollettis still embroiled in a legal case over an alleged attack against him that caught national attention in January 2019. The actor alleged that the suspects shouted racial and homophobic slurs before they attacked him. However, it was later reported that the actor may have been misleading the police, who believed that he may have paid two Nigerian brothers to stage the attack.
He was charged with filing a false police report beforethe police abruptly dropped the chargesin March 2019. In February, however,Smollett was indicted againon similar charges, alleging he made “four separate false reports to Chicago Police Department officers related to his false claims that he was the victim of a hate crime”. Smollett, who hasmaintained his innocencethroughout the case, wasdropped fromthe acclaimed TV series “Empire”following the scandal. The show ended with its sixth season in April this year.
