Since deciding that he doesn't want to make another Jason Bourne movie right now, Paul Greengrass has spent the better part of the last year jumping around from project to project. First came Fantastic Voyage, then Treasure Island, and then, most recently, Cleopatra. But with it already been a little over a week since Greengrass was linked to a project, we now have a new title and subject: Memphis, the story of the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination.
Vulture reports that Greengrass is now attached to write and direct the project, which will be about King's work to organize the city's sanitation workers in 1968 before he was killed by James Earl Ray. Based on Greengrass' own research - he was a journalist and documentary filmmaker before becoming an action film director - there is suggestion in the article that the film will focus on the more human elements of King's life at the time, when, "his marriage was faltering; he was chain-smoking, boozing, and packing on the pounds." There is also talks that producer Scott Rudin will work on the film with Greengrass and that it will be set up over at Focus Features, but no formal talks have begun.
As interesting as Greengrass' take on those other projects might have been, I truly hope that this ends up being the next film that he makes. Much closer to his roots as a filmmaker, there is an extremely powerful story to be told here and he may very well be the perfect director to tell it.
