John Boyega has confirmed through Instagram that he has joined the casting of a film, based on Detroit riots which took place in 1967. Kathryn Bigelow, who became the first woman to win the Academy Award for best director for 2008 movie The Hurt Locker, is in charge of the project.
The Detroit riots took place after police raided an unlicensed, after-hours bar and were some of the worst in America's history lasting five days. 43 people died during the riots and more than 1000 people were injured. Around 7000 people were arrested and the president at that time, Lyndon B. Johnson had to send the army to stop the violence. Only the LA riots in 1992 and mass violence in New York in 1863 during the draft for the US civil war, were on a larger scale.
Kathryn Bigelow works with the producers and screen writer Mark Boal on the project as she did The Hurt Locker and 2012's Zero Dark Thirty, which was about the mission to find Osama Bin Laden, but this movie does not have a Hollywood studio behind that but it is being financed by Annapurna Pictures. 
The movie explores the reason behind the riots, like poverty, unemployment, racism, policing and education. The film will be shot at the nearby town of Hamtramck and Boston, in Detroit.
It's going to be filmed this summer for releasing in the next year, on the 50th anniversary of the riots.
By Prakriti Neogi
