Huey P. Newton is the center of a new limited series for Apple TV.
Andre Holland is in talks to star as Huey P. Newton in the Apple TV limited series The Big Cigar, about how the Black Panther leader eluded a nationwide manhunt and escaped to Cuba. The six-part series comes from Don Cheadle, Janine Sherman Barrois, Jim Hecht, Joshuah Bearman and Warner Bros. TV. Cheadle will direct the first two episodes and Barrois is attached as the showrunner.
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According to the logline, the six-part series will tell “the extraordinary, hilarious, almost-too-good-to-be-true story of how Newton relied on his best friend, Bert Schneider, the Hollywood producer behind Easy Rider, to elude a nationwide manhunt and escape to Cuba while being pursued into exile by the FBI.”
Jim Hecht is writing The Big Cigar which is being adapted from a Playboy magazine article by Joshuah Bearman who is also serving as executive producer.
Hecht, who co-created HBO’s Winning Time is also executive producing alongside Cheadle and Barrois.
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It is produced by Warner Bros. Television, where Sherman Barrois and her Folding Chair Productions are under an overall deal. Joshua Davis and Arthur Spector, through their production company Epic, a division of Vox Media Studios, also exec produce.