April 29 marks the 25th anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles uprising, also known as the Rodney King riots, and the man whose beating by police was captured on film and brought the topic of race to the forefront of the national conversation may soon be the subject of a new docuseries.
Variety reports that producers Morgan Freeman and Lisa McCreary are developing a multipart limited series on the life of King through their company, Revelations Entertainment.
King’s youth with an alcoholic father, the behind-the-scenes turmoil of his civil trial, his life posttrial and his reluctant status as a civil rights figure will be explored and told through his own voice with the use of intimate home video footage.
Revelations, along with director Sheldon Wilson, has acquired the rights to 20 hours of newly discovered and never-before-seen video footage of King that was filmed over a 12-year period by Dennis McDougal and Ira Abrams before King’s 2012 death.
“Our company is about revealing the truth, and we thought this would be a great way to reveal the truth about who this man was,” McCreary told Variety. “We’ve had such a narrow view of who he was. There’s so much more to the story. I’m excited to finally be able to reveal the truth.”
McCreary said the plan in the coming weeks is to pitch the project to networks, including A&E, Amazon.com, CNN, HBO and Netflix.
Variety reports that King’s surviving family members are working with the producers and will appear on camera along with his attorneys, Steven Lerman and Milton Grimes, and the Rev. Al Sharpton and Dr. Drew Pinsky.
McCreary told Variety that the target release date is 2018.