In between the giant fantasy or superhero likes of A Wrinkle In Time and her still-in-development DCEU entry New Gods, writer/director Ava DuVernay has been putting together something a little more down to earth – she's making a new miniseries about infamous true-crime case the Central Park Five. And the first cast members are aboard, with Michael K. Williams, Vera Farmiga and John Leguizamo in the ensemble.
The case focused on five men, teenagers at the time – Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise – who were accused of a brutal gang rape in Central Park in 1989. With failures of justice and then-businessman Donald Trump calling for New York to re-instate the death penalty, they ended up convicted and serving jail time until they were freed in 2002 via new DNA evidence. Each of the four episodes of the miniseries will introduce one of the men and look at the critical problems with their case, charting the time between their conviction and their clearance.
Williams will be Antron's father, Bobby McCray, with Farmiga as Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Lederer, who oversaw the prosecution in the cases, and Leguizamo as Raymond Santana Sr.
Even despite documentarian Ken Burns having covered the subject, DuVernay and co-writers Robin Swicord, Attica Locke and Michael Starberry clearly feel there are fresh angles to take. DuVernay will direct all the episodes and the Central Park Five cameras will be rolling in New York next month.
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