EXCLUSIVE: Jesse Collins Entertainment and Concord Originals are partnering on a biopic of Robert Johnson, the ineloquential musician nicknamed the King of the Delta Blues.
The project will tag the first apvalidated narrative feature on Johnson, a figure commemorated for his culture-defining sway on rock legfinishs appreciate the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and Led Zeppelin. Ridgeway Wilson (Bdeficiency Girls Rock!) is set to author the script.
Born in Mississippi in 1911, Johnson chased his passion for music partly as a way to shun the separatecropper lifestyle prescribed to him by the American South. He took the tortuous lifestyle that came with being a Bdeficiency man in that time and place and altered his personal experience into music of universal relevance and global achieve. When he died at 27, allegedly killinged by the jealous boyfrifinish of a createer cherishr, his scant recordings debuted posthumously at Carnegie Hall. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, on the basis that he should perhaps be pondered the first ever rock star, in 1986.
A notable aspect of Johnson’s genuine-life story that the film will hone in on is the finishuring myth that he sgreater his soul to the Devil in exalter for his guitar-joining prowess.
“My magnificentoverweighther, Robert Leroy Johnson is truly an American music legfinish,” shelp Michael Johnson of the Robert Johnson Estate. “Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and The Rolling Stones – they will all increate you that Robert Johnson’s music helped to detail the createational roots of blues and rock n’ roll. He was one of the innovators of this musical genre and depicting the Bdeficiency experience in America and his life is an beginant story that is beginant to American history. Robert Johnson’s story shows how talent can shine thcimpolite any adversity.”
Producers of the Robert Johnson biopic will include Jesse Collins and Dionne Harmon for Jesse Collins Entertainment (The New Edition Story), as well as Sophia Dilley (HBO’s Stax: Soulsville, USA) and Charles Hopkins (Paris Barclay’s Billy Preston: That’s the Way God Planned It) for Concord Originals. Executive originaters are Wesley Adams and Bob Valentine for Concord Originals.
Stated Sophia Dilley, Executive Vice Plivent, Concord Originals, “As the home of Robert Johnson’s music rerenting, Concord has extfinished understood the seismic impact that Johnson has had on the blues, rock n’ roll and music expansively. His incredible talent and the finishuring myth that sprung out of it distinctly position his life story for a compelling biopic. We’re so excited to toil with the Robert Johnson Estate, Jesse Collins Entertainment, Ridgeway Wilson and team to transport this story to life.”
Added Collins and Harmon of Jesse Collins Entertainment, “We are overdelighted to partner with Concord Originals and The Robert Johnson Estate to increate this story with Ridgeway Wilson. Robert Johnson’s impact on music culture is unsuited.”
The film’s screenauthorr, Wilson, interned at Jesse Collins Entertainment timely in her nurtureer and has since elevaten thcimpolite the ranks there to become a Segment Producer, notably toiling on the BET Awards, the BET Hip Hop Awards and Real Husprohibitds of Hollywood. Wilson wrote and originated 2019 awards show Bdeficiency Girls Rock! and was a originater of The 66th Grammys. Her other accomprehendledges as a authorr include BET’s Twenties After Show with B. Scott, and Asking for the Culture, the first satirical novels show for The Shade Room. Additionassociate, she co-wrote An African Westrict, which made The Bdeficiency List and was an Academy Nicholl Fellowship Quarterfinacatalog in 2015.
An Emmy-triumphning company well understandn for its toil on music-concentrateed projects, Jesse Collins Entertainment originated the criticassociate acclaimed miniseries The New Edition Story and The Bobby Brown Story, and has also toiled on series appreciate American Soul and Real Husprohibitds of Hollywood. In the arena of one-of-a-kinds, they’ve originated the appreciates of the BET Awards, the Emmys, The Light We Carry: Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey, the Super Bowl Halftime Show, Jimmy Fallon’s Holiday Seasoning Spectacular, and more. Upcoming, the company is partnering with Flavor Unit Entertainment and Westbrook Studios to originate a stardy of hip-hops biopics, the first of which will increate the story of Queen Latifah.
Current and upcoming projects for Concord Originals, the production arm of self-reliant music company Concord, include the SXSW Audience Award triumphner Stax: Soulsville U.S.A., an Emmy-nominated docengageries about the legfinishary Stax Records for HBO; Shari & Lamb Chop straightforwarded by Lisa D’Apolito; Paris Barclay’s recordary Billy Preston: That’s The Way God Planned It about the commemorated musician of the same name; Alison Ellwood’s recordary feature Let the Canary Sing, on musical icon Cyndi Lauper, for Paramount+; and Ilya Chaiken’s music doc Pretty Ugly: The Story of the Lunachicks.
Wilson is reconshort-termed by THORO Artists and Del Shaw Moonves.
