In an exclusive story first reported by Deadline, rising star Jonathan Majors will produce and star in Da Understudy, a new project of Westbrook Studios and Amazon Studies. Spike Lee is reportedly set to direct the new film; Lee had earlier directed Majors in Da 5 Bloods.
The screenplay for Da Understudy was written by Tom Hanada (Motherland), Zach Strauss (SMILF) and Tyler Cole based on Cole’s original story about the ambition-driven understudy in a Broadway production willing to do anything–including murder–to secure his moment in the limelight.
Majors seems to have been driven by that same passion in real life.
He recently debuted in a bunch of films, including The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Devotion, and The Harder They Fall, as well as the limited series Lovecraft Country. He also appeared in Marvel’s Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania as well as Creed III, which earned more than $100 million globally, setting records for a sports-oriented film.
Majors also played the role of a troubled bodybuilder in Magazine Dreams, which received much notice at the recent Sundance Film Festival. Directed by Elijah Bynum, the feature will soon be released by Searchlight Pictures.
As if that weren’t enough, Majors will soon start production on The Man in My Basement and in Lionsgate’s 48 Hours in Vegas, where he will star as Dennis Rodman. Both are connected with Majors’s Tall Street production entity.
Majors is undoubtedly drawing on his own troubled childhood in interpreting these roles.
His father “disappeared” from the family for some seventeen years and the young actor grew up in an unsavory environment that included drug dealers and murderers.
As an adolescent he was arrested for shoplifting, got suspended from high school for fighting, and was forced to live in his car after being kicked out of his house. Majors found his calling after watching Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. He graduated from Yale School of Drama with an MFA in 2016. His first onscreen role was in the ABC miniseries When We Rise, portraying a real-life gay activist.
Ryan Shimazaki will oversee Da Understudy on behalf of Westbrook Studios, which is developing the story in-house.
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