Lucy Hale and Lucas Till are starring in Spike Lee’s civil rights drama “Son of the South,” Variety has learned exclusively.
“Son of the South” is based on the Bob Zellner autobiography, “The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement.” Zellner, an Alabama native and grandson of a Ku Klux Klan member, is pulled into the center of the civil rights movement in 1961.
Till (the “X-Men” franchise) is starring as Zellner and Hale as Carol Ann, Zellner’s college girlfriend. Lex Scott Davis (“Superfly”) is also starring along with Julia Ormond as Virginia Durr, Cedric the Entertainer as Reverend Ralph Abernathy and Sharonne Lanier as Rosa Parks. Brian Dennehy plays Zellner’s grandfather. Chaka Forman is portraying his activist father Jim Forman.
Lee is executive producing with his longtime editor Barry Alexander Brown directing from his own screenplay. Lee won the Academy Award for the “BlacKkKlansman” adapted screenplay and Brown received an editing nomination.
“Son of the South” has started shooting in Montgomery, Ala., where many of the events took place. The producers are Colin Bates (“Maggie”), Eve Pomerance (“As Good as Dead”), Bill Black (“Bayou Caviar”), Stan Erdreich, and River Bend Pictures (“Coming Through the Rye”).
Lee and Brown’s collaboration dates back to 1986’s “She’s Gotta Have It,” and includes “Do the Right Thing,” “Malcolm X,” and “Inside Man.” Brown also co-directed the Academy Award-nominated documentary “The War at Home.”