Sticking with her regular screenwriter Mark Boal, but leaving behind the militaristic thrust of The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow has settled on her next project. She'll direct an as-yet untitled crime drama based on the riots in Detroit, Michigan in 1967.
Also known as the 12th Street Riot, the public disturbance began when police raided an unlicensed, after-hours bar and found a rather larger party going on than they had expected. Resitance there mixed with a gathering hostile crowd on the street outside, sparked five days of destructive protest fuelled by racial enmity.
Boal has been working on his screenplay for a year. "Although details about the Detroit project are not being revealed at this time," runs the press release, "it is a crime drama exploring systemic racism in urban Detroit, set against the backdrop of the devastating riots that took place over five haunting summer days in 1967."
Annapurna Pictures are financing the film, and while no studio is yet attached, a release date is being targeted for 2017, the 50th anniversary of the riots.