Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios has nabbed the U.S. rights to the legal drama All Rise, which stars Kelvin Harrison Jr. as a straight-arrow Harlem youth arrested for his peripheral involvement in a deadly crime.
The first feature from music video and commercial director Anthony Mandler bowed in competition at Sundance as Monster. Harrison Jr. plays Steve Harmon, a 17-year-old honor student whose world comes crashing down around him when he is charged with felony murder.
The film follows his dramatic journey from a smart, likable film student from Harlem attending an elite high school through a complex legal battle that could leave him spending the rest of his life in prison.
Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures International, the studio’s international sales and distribution division, will also handle worldwide theatrical distribution for the Bron Studios title. “This is a very important and timely film which inspires and reminds us that together we have the power to make the necessary positive changes,” Byron Allen, chairman and CEO of Entertainment Studios said in a statement.
“This excellent story shows us how every day, African-Americans are positioned to fail in the schoolroom, the boardroom, and the courtroom long before we bleed to death in the streets,” he added. All Rise is based on the Walter Dean Myers novel Monster, and also stars Jennifer Hudson, Jeffrey Wright, Jennifer Ehle, Tim Blake Nelson and John David Washington.
The screenplay is by Radha Blank, Colen C. Wiley and Janece Shaffer. The film is produced by Tonya Lewis Lee, Nikki Silver, Aaron L. Gilbert, Mike Jackson and Edward Tyler Nahem.
All Rise is also produced by Tonik Productions and Get Lifted Film, in association with Charlevoix, Red Crown and Creative Wealth Media. John Legend, Jeffrey Wright, Nas, Dan Crown, Yoni Liebling, Jason Cloth, Richard McConnell, Linnea Roberts, Ty Stiklorius, Byron Allen, Carolyn Folks, and Jennifer Lucas share the executive producer credits.
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Hollywood Reporter