Mary J. Blige is set to star and executive produce in the upcoming drama film, Rob Peace. She joins previously cast Jay Will who will star in the title role.
Chiwetel Ejiofor is directing and penning the script which is based on Jeff Hobbs’ best-selling biography “The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League.”
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The film follows a young man who grew up in a crime-ridden section of Newark, NY and later graduated from Yale with degrees in molecular biophysics and biochemistry earned on scholarship. Peace led a dual life living in the insular world of academia and as a lab researcher of cancer and infectious diseases, while at the same time making six figures from the sale of marijuana. He was killed in a drug-related shooting in 2011.
Rob Peace, which marks Ejiofor’s second feature film directing, is currently in production.
Los Angeles Media Fund is producing Rob Peace, in association with Hill District Media and Participant. Producers include Antoine Fuqua, Rebecca Hobbs, Kat Samick, Andrea Calderwood, Jeffrey Soros, Simon Horsman, and Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet for 25 Stories. Exec producers are Blige, Luke Rodgers and Morgan Earnest for LAMF, Jeff Skoll and Robert Kessel for Participant, Jamin O’Brien, and Bruce Evans for 25 Stories.
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Blige is a versatile talent with an impressive portfolio in the entertainment industry. She’s an actress, producer, entrepreneur, and 9x Grammy-winning singer-songwriter with eight multi-platinum albums to her name. Her outstanding performance in the historical drama film “Mudbound” earned her two Academy Award nominations, making her the first African American woman to achieve this feat in both acting and music categories in the same year. The film also earned her three Golden Globe nominations, two SAG Award nominations, and numerous other accolades.
Presently, Blige can be seen in the Starz’s popular series “Power Book II: Ghost,” where she plays the role of crime boss Monet Stewart Tejeda. On the producing side, she has a first-look TV deal with Lionsgate, and first-look non-scripted and second-look scripted deals with BET. Blige recently worked with Amazon and Oscar-winning filmmaker Vanessa Roth on her documentary “Mary J. Blige’s My Life,” which celebrates the 25th anniversary of her celebrated album “My Life.”