According to EW, two of the largest names in entertainment, Will Smith and Jay Z, are teaming up to executive produce a miniseries based on Emmett Till for HBO. Jay Brown, James Lassiter, and Aaron Kaplan are said to be joining the two on the executive producing team.
No writers are currently attached to the miniseries, but Jay Z’s Roc Nation, Smith’s Overbrook, and Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment are the production companies tied to the Emmett Till project.
Till was a 14-year-old African-American teen from Chicago who was brutally murdered while visiting family in Mississippi in 1955. Till was shot and beaten before being dumped in the Tallahatchie River. Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam were tried and acquitted for Till’s murder, but months later admitted to killing the teenager, though they could not be retried in criminal court.
Smith and Jay Z were both producers on the remake of Annie which starred Jamie Foxx. There is currently no timeline set on Till’s miniseries.
