Craig Brewer to produce Muhammad Ali-connected crime series starring Kevin Hart
Memphis filmmaker Craig Brewer will executive-produce and direct the first two episodes of a limited series with Kevin Hart inspired by an infamous armed robbery that occurred in Atlanta after Muhammad Ali's 1970 comeback boxing match against Jerry Quarry.
"Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist" is set to begin filming in February, Brewer said Wednesday from Atlanta, where he is scouting locations for the eight-episode show. Hart and veteran filmmaker Will Packer will produce the series for Peacock, the NBCUniversal streaming service.
Brewer said his work will "set the visual tone for the piece and establish the arc for the rest of the season," which will focus in large part on the cat-and-mouse relationship between robbery ringleader Gordon "Chicken Man" Williams, played by Hart, and J.D. Hudson, the chief investigating detective, whose casting has yet to be announced.
The show is adapted from a podcast about the heist that was produced by Packer. Scripts are by Shaye Ogbonna, who will serve as a showrunner on the series, and whose credits include the Lena Waithe-created Showtime program "The Chi." The other showrunner is Jason Horwitch, known for the Marvel series "Luke Cage."
In a 2020 interview about the podcast, Packer said that "true-crime aficionados and those new to the genre will be enthralled" by the story of the heist, which he called "captivating" and "suspenseful" — particularly because the story occurs against "the backdrop of a historic moment in the great Muhammad Ali’s career." Both Ali and Quarry will be characters in the Peacock series.
Brewer — who first achieved widespread recognition in 2005 with the release of his made-in-Memphis "Hustle & Flow," which earned two Oscar nominations — said "Fight Night" is "an exciting story that's got everything. It's got Muhammad Ali, it's got this crime… It's also about Atlanta emerging into embracing itself as a Black city and growing into what it is today."
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The armed robbery of more than 200 fight fans depicted in "Fight Night" took place on Oct. 27, 1970, the night after Ali defeated Quarry in a technical knockout. The highly hyped fight was particularly significant because it was Ali's first professional heavyweight match in three years, due to his suspension from boxing for refusing to enter the military draft.
According to a 1970 story in The New York Times, the heist victims were lured by "engraved invitations" to a house, where "the party goers were met by the robbers as they arrived, herded into a basement and forced to disrobe and surrender their money and jewelry."
The owner of the house was Williams, described by Packer as a "hustler." But many of the victims were shady character themselves: out-of-town gangsters and hoodlums, in Atlanta for the fight.
The aftermath of the crime was widespread and violent. Two of the robbers were shot to death months later in New York, in what police characterized as mob "justice."
“We said last fall it was just a question of who caught up with them first — the police or the victims," Hudson told The New York Times. "It appears the victims got there first."
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Packer — whose wife, Heather Hayslett, is from Memphis — has produced such film and television projects as the comedy "Girls Trip" and the "Ride Along" movies with Hart and Ice Cube, as well as a previous Atlanta-based true-crime series, "The Atlanta Child Murders."
"I've always wanted to work with Will Packer, but to work with a talent like Kevin Hart is a dream," said Brewer, 52, whose most recent movies, "Dolemite Is My Name" and "Coming 2 America," also showcased a comedian turned movie star, Eddie Murphy.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Kevin Hart, Craig Brewer part of Muhammad Ali heist series at Peacock
