Oprah Winfrey and Brad Pitt Team To Produce- Selma

Paramont Pictures and Selma Productions, LLC., are involved in a feature drama about Martin Luther King‘s 1965 landmark voting rights campaign regarded as the peak of the civil rights movement, and none other than Media mogul Winfrey Oprah Winfrey and Brad Pitt -via his Plan B production company, and its execs Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner. Plan B was behind 12 Years a Slave, the slave drama that just nabbed 10 Oscar nominations- have boarded the project as producers.

Also producing Selma is Christian Coulson, who won an Oscar for producingSlumdog Millionaire. Pathe, the company which financed last year'sMandela: Long Walk to Freedom, is financing Selma, and the company’s Cameron McCracken also is producing.

Paramount is tying down U.S. and Canadian distribution rights to the film. 

David Oyelowo plays King in the film, reteaming with “Middle of Nowhere” director Ava Duvernay. Oyelowo has appeared in a couple of other civic-minded films recently — “Lincoln” and “The Butler,” in which he played Winfrey's activist son. Ava DuVernay, who came aboard the project in July, rewrote the original script by Paul Webb and slipped it to Winfrey, who sparked to DuVernay’s rewrite. We’ve been waiting for a strong cinematic tribute to the iconic civil rights leader, and this remarkably becomes the second MLK project that Winfrey is involved with. Her Harpo also is behind a seven-part HBO miniseries America: In the King Years. 

“Selma” chronicles three marches from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, the first of which was known as “Bloody Sunday” because cops attacked marchers with clubs and gas. The protesters were seeking an equal voice in elections, which they got (at least in writing) with the passage of the Voting Rights Act later that year.

Oprah Winfrey is portraying Annie Lee Cooper, an elderly African American woman who was beaten and thrown in jail for standing in line to register to vote at the Selma courthouse after the 1965 Voting Rights Act passed. The sheriff who put her in jail, Sheriff Jim Clark, was also involved in the earlier March 1965 "Bloody Sunday" civil rights riot. Cooper remained an active civil rights champion until her death in 2010 at the age of 100.

On Wednesday, "Selma" filmed in the Marietta Square of Georgia where onlookers could see a scene being filmed that included Oprah. The movie also filmed scenes in the Covington Square of Conyers, Georgia on Thursday and Friday. Scenes filmed at the courthouse Friday involve a portrayal of federal Judge Frank Johnson, who championed Civil Rights and desegregation in Alabama in the 1960s.  Oprah was on set Wednesday for a "cameo" role when she learned the sad news that her longtime friend and mentor Maya Angelou had died.She was noticeably distraught, Her friend Tyler Perry arrived to comfort her.

Winfrey posted this loving tribute to Angelou, who died Wednesday at 86:

"I've been blessed to have Maya Angelou as my mentor, mother/sister, and friend since my 20s. She was there for me always, guiding me through some of the most important years of my life. The world knows her as a poet but at the heart of her, she was a teacher. ‘When you learn, teach. When you get, give’ is one of my best lessons from her." "She won three Grammys, spoke six languages and was the second poet in history to recite a poem at a presidential inauguration. But what stands out to me most about Maya Angelou is not what she has done or written or spoken, it’s how she lived her life. She moved through the world with unshakeable calm, confidence and a fierce grace.

"I loved her and I know she loved me. I will profoundly miss her. She will always be the rainbow in my clouds."

Martin Sheen is playing the part of federal judge Frank Johnson, whose rulings allowed the 1965 civil rights marches to take place.

Winfrey’s presence both on and off the screen was a big reason Lee Daniels’ The Butler traveled so well overseas. The Butler has grossed $167.7 million to date — more than $50M of that internationally. This gives "Selma" a leg up on the other two major features that are percolating. Oliver Stone last month saw a script rewrite on his MLK biopic rejected by DreamWorks and Warner Bros, and it caused him to back out of the project. Meanwhile, Paul Greengrass still isn’t ready to move on his biopic Memphis that he plans to make with Scott Rudin.

Ava Duvernay

The Paradigm-repped DuVernay was the first black woman to win Best Director at Sundance for her second feature, the 2012 drama Middle Of Nowhere. The former publicist apparently was approached by the Selma producers after they saw the microbudgeted indie, which was shot in 19 days in and around LA. Her Nowhere leading man David Oyelowo is set to play King.

Selma is the project Lee Daniels was attached to direct, but the funding didn't come together in time and he subsequently signed on to The Butler. Daniels had lined up a terrific cast — Oyelowo, Hugh Jackman, Liam Neeson, Ray Winstone, Robert De Niro, and Cedric the Entertainer were among those who’d circled. Jackman even gained 30 pounds to play Jim Clark, a sheriff who arrested King; he eventually had to go lose the weight to star in Real Steel.

"Selma" filming in Marietta, Georgia.

In this scene for "Selma," the Marietta-Cobb Museum of Art appears to be approximating a courthouse.

Here's the ALL STAR Cast

	Tom Wilkinson	...	President Lyndon B. Johnson
	David Oyelowo	...	Martin Luther King Jr.
	Common	...	James Bevel
	Carmen Ejogo	...	Coretta Scott King
	Tessa Thompson	...	Diane Nash
	Wendell Pierce	...	Reverend Hosea Williams
	Lakeith Lee Stanfield	...	Jimmie Lee Jackson
	Lorraine Toussaint	...	Amelia Boynton
	Omar J. Dorsey	...	James Orange
	Corey Reynolds	...	CT Vivian
	Andre Holland	...	Andrew Young
	Stephan James	...	John Lewis
	Trai Byers	...	James Forman
	Colman Domingo	...	Rev. Ralph Abernathy
	E. Roger Mitchell	...	Reverend Frederick Reese
	Haviland Stillwell	...	President's Secretary
	Brandon Carroll	...	Klansman
	Justice Leak	...	Klansman #1
	Elizabeth Diane Wells	...	Marie Reeb (as Elizabeth Wells Berkes)
	Amahre Palmer	...	Church Attendant
	Greg Chandler Maness	...	LBJ's Aide
	Christine Horn	...	Female Marcher
	Stan Houston	...	Sheriff Jim Clark
	Montrel Miller	...	Young Marcher
	Dexter Tillis	...	Angry Marcher
	Clay Chappell	...	Registrar
	Ledisi Young	...	Mahalia Jackson
	Tara Ochs	...	Viola Liuzzo
	David Silverman	...	Anthony Liuzzo
	Charles Black	...	Elderly Marcher
	Brandon O'Dell	...	Reeb's Companion
	Mark Cabus	...	State Attorney