When “Attack the Block” hit screens last summer, it almost immediately became everyone’s favorite new cult hit. While we’re still waiting with bated breath to find out what writer/director Joe Cornish will do next, someone who’s taking considerably less time to line up his future projects is ATB’s lead actor, John Boyega.
That was Boyega’s debut performance, and he’s since also been seen in “Junkhearts” (which got a small U.K. release last year), but it looked like his breakout role was going to be in Spike Lee‘s pilot “Da Brick.” Unfortunately that project appears to have been killed as HBO passed on it earlier this month (although we’re still holding out hope that someone else will pick up the pilot) leaving Boyega still looking for that role that makes him a star.
Might “Half of a Yellow Sun” be that project? The British-Nigerian actor will join Chiwetel Ejiofor, Dominic Cooper and Thandie Newton on the adaptation of the bestselling novel. The story is set during the Nigerian-Biafran War of 1967-70 and tracks a university professor (we’re guessing that’s Ejiofor), his lover (Newton?), her sister, a British ex-pat (Cooper?), and their houseboy — and it’s this final role that we’d expect Boyega will take.
Variety also reports that Boyega is in talks to take the lead role in Billy O’Brien‘s indie sci-fi “Creeping Zero.” Our pals at Shadow & Act have done a bit of digging, and reveal that the film is based on a short story from Jeff Noon‘s “Pixel Juice” collection. The plot is set 60 years in the future where the Creeping Zero team has to save humanity from having their faces taken from the Fumati. But in a world where your literal image can be stolen, who do you trust? A 3D sizzle reel apparently got talk and money flowing at the Berlin Film Festival and the movie will shoot this fall.
So after a bit of bad news with “Da Brick” it looks as if things are looking up now for Boyega. We’re psyched for the actor whose work in “Attack the Block” deserved to be seen by more people that it was, and we’ve been rooting for him ever since.
