Tony Kushner has signed on to pen the adaptation of the August Wilson play, FENCES. Denzel Washington will direct and likely star in the film, alongside Viola Davis. The two actors previously headlined the Broadway revival.
Fences examines race relations and follows a man who dreamed of being a baseball great but ended up collecting trash. The original play was written in 1985 and starred James Earl Jones and Mary Alice, who both won Tony Awards for their roles. The play also earned a Pulitzer. History repeated itself in 2010 when the play was revived on Broadway, with Washington and Davis winning awards for the roles originated by Jones and Alice. It also earned producer Scott Rudin a Tony for Best Revival of a Play.
Rudin and Washington will also serve as the producers of the feature version, which has found a home at Paramount Pictures.
Kushner is known for writing the Tony and Pulitzer-winning play Angels In America: A Gay Fantasia On National Themes. He adapted the play into an HBO mini-series which earned him an Emmy. Film-wise, Kushner wrote the screenplays for Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and Munich. Both earned him Academy Award nominations. He’ll collaborate with Spielberg again for The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, which is based on the novel by David I. Kertzer.
Kushner is repped by Gersh.
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Dino-Ray Ramos | Staff Writer
