Never a man to shy away from difficult subjects, Hunger director Steve McQueen is now set to tackle a controversial and poignant true story with 12 Years a Slave, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor.
According to Variety, McQueen has been developing the project under the radar for a while now and co-wrote the script with Red Tails scribe John Ridley.
The movie will tell the real-life tale of Solomon Northup (Ejiofor), a New York resident who was kidnapped in Washington in 1841. He was sent to a cotton plantation in Louisiana and lived as a slave for more than a decade before being rescued in 1853.
Brad Pitt’s Plan B company is producing the film, and McQueen is now looking to put financing in place so he can start shooting early next year. His latest effort, sex addiction drama Shame (which reunites him with Hunger’s Michael Fassbender), is now complete and will have its premiere at the Venice Film Festival next month.
Ejiofor, last seen in 2012 and Salt, will already have played an ex-slave before he reports to the 12 Years set, as he appears in Annette Haywood-Carter’s Savannah. That film follows the friendship between artist Ward Allen (Jim Caviezel) and freed slave Christmas Moultrie (Ejiofor). It should arrive sometime next year.