Morgan Freeman to Develop Rodney King Docuseries Using Home Video Footage

By Sameer Rao Apr 18, 2017

Morgan Freeman ("Going in Style") will co-produce a limited documentary series highlighting recently unearthed aspects of Rodney King‘s life.

Variety reported yesterday (April 17) that Freeman, producer Lori McCreary‘s ("Invictus") and director Sheldon Wilson ("The Hollow") successfully acquired the rights to almost 20 hours of never-before-seen home video footage featuring King. Shot by journalist Dennis McDougal and anthropologist and producer Ira Abrams over a 12-year period before King’s 2012 death, the footage includes King’s accounts of his childhood with an alcoholic father and lifelong pain from injuries sustained during his videotaped 1991 beating by Los Angeles Police Department officers.

According to Variety, the still-untitled limited series will use this footage to explore King’s life through his own words. Several members of his family, including his first wife Danetta Lyles, appear in interview segments and will work with executive producers Freeman and McCreary to develop the project. "Telling this story from the perspective of people who knew him and in his own words, we’ll see a different Rodney King—a generous, intelligent, loving man," McCreary told Variety.

McCreary added that she and Freeman plan to pitch the series to networks like "A&E, Amazon, CNN, HBO and Netflix" for a hopeful 2018 debut. The duo will produce the project through their company, Revelations Entertainment.