Scott Cooper To Direct MLK Assassination Movie ‘Hellhound On His Trail’

With so much focus and conversation at the moment about diversity, and calls for people of color and women to be guardians of their own narratives, announcements like this make you wonder if anybody is actually listening in Hollywood.

Scott Cooper, the director behind “Crazy Heart,” “Out Of The Furnace,” and the upcoming “Hostiles,” has been tapped to direct the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination thriller “Hellhound On His Trail.” Perfect choice? The movie will be based on the bestselling, non-fiction book by Hampton Sides, which details the hunt for trigger man, James Earl Ray. Here’s the book synopsis:

On April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray shot Martin Luther King at the Lorraine Motel. The nation was shocked, enraged, and saddened. As chaos erupted across the country and mourners gathered at King’s funeral, investigators launched a sixty-five day search for King’s assassin that would lead them across two continents. With a blistering, cross-cutting narrative that draws on a wealth of dramatic unpublished documents, Hampton Sides, bestselling author of Ghost Soldiers, delivers a non-fiction thriller in the tradition of William Manchester’s The Death of a President and Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. With Hellhound On His Trail, Sides shines a light on the largest manhunt in American history and brings it to life for all to see.

Cooper himself has penned the script and everything is moving forward for cameras to roll next spring, but one hopes everyone involved will at least pause for a moment to consider if some other perspectives on the story might be worth seeking out. [Deadline]