Tiffany Boone is set to star opposite André Holland in the Huey P. Newton limited series The Big Cigar for Apple TV.
The series, which is about how the Black Panther leader eluded a nationwide manhunt and escaped to Cuba, is based on Joshuah Bearman’s Playboy article of the same name. Bearman is also attached as executive producer.
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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.”
Boone will star as Gwen Fontaine, Newton’s girlfriend who later turned into his wife. She fled to Cuba with Newton where they resided until 1977.
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Big Cigar comes from Don Cheadle, Janine Sherman Barrois, Jim Hecht, Bearman and Warner Bros. TV. Cheadle will direct the first two episodes and Barrois is attached as the showrunner. Hecht is penning the series as well as executive producing alongside Cheadle and Barrois.
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.