A powerful new feature film centered on Coretta Scott King and her decades-long pursuit of the truth surrounding the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. is officially in development.
Titled King vs. the United States of America, the project is being developed by filmmaker Ava DuVernay and media mogul Byron Allen, with the film set to examine Mrs. King’s relentless investigation into what she believed was a far broader conspiracy behind her husband’s 1968 assassination.
Rather than retelling the events of April 4, 1968, the film shifts focus to the years that followed—chronicling Coretta Scott King’s refusal to accept the official conclusion that James Earl Ray acted alone. While Ray initially confessed to the murder of Dr. King at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, he later recanted, and the King family consistently rejected the “lone gunman” narrative.
That skepticism was reinforced over time. A mid-1970s U.S. Senate investigation exposed illegal FBI surveillance and harassment of Dr. King under J. Edgar Hoover, and in 1999, a wrongful death civil trial brought by the King family concluded that Dr. King was the victim of a wider conspiracy involving “government agencies” and other entities.
King vs. the United States of America also situates Coretta Scott King as more than a grieving widow. Following her husband’s death, she emerged as a formidable leader in her own right—founding the King Center, advocating for civil and human rights, championing feminism and LGBTQ rights, and becoming a vocal opponent of South Africa’s apartheid regime.
The film is being produced by Allen alongside Carolyn Folks, Jennifer Lucas, Chris Charalambous, and Matthew Signer.
The project arrives amid renewed public attention on the assassination. In July 2025, the U.S. government released more than 230,000 pages of FBI and CIA documents related to Dr. King’s death following an executive order. The files—now housed at the National Archives—detail extensive federal surveillance, COINTELPRO operations, and investigative records related to James Earl Ray. While the newly released materials do not rewrite history outright, they add further context to the concerns the King family raised for decades.
For DuVernay, the project continues a body of work interrogating systems of power, justice, and historical narrative. Her recent film Origin, based on Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, examined the structural foundations of global inequality. She is also developing the upcoming thriller Heist of Benin, which reunites her with David Oyelowo, who previously portrayed Dr. King in Selma.
King vs. the United States of America aims to do more than revisit a tragic moment in history. Instead, it centers a woman who refused silence, challenged official narratives, and spent decades demanding accountability—positioning Coretta Scott King not just as a witness to history, but as one of its most determined architects.