Signal Hill: Jamie Foxx to reunite with Ray director Taylor Hackford for this crime drama

Jamie Foxx joins hands with Ray helmer Taylor Hackford for the much-awaited cop scandal movie Signal Hill. Foxx will be playing the role of Black Panther leader Elmer Geronimo Pratt.

Signal Hill is based on a true event of wrongful death case of a college football star Ron Settles in 1981. The Settles case began as a racial controversy, in which a black couple, Helen and Donnel Settles, sought a coroner’s inquest into the death of their 21-year-old son. It grew into a major investigation after the coroner’s inquiry called Settles’ death a homicide, and not a suicide, as the police had asserted.

This film will also star Anthony Mackie as attorney Johnnie Cochran and Elizabeth Banks as Mary Neiswender, an investigative newspaper reporter for the Long Beach Press - Telegram who helped in the investigation and broke stories on the cover-up.

Variety reports that the film will go on floors in January next year. David MacMillan, Mackie, Jason Spire, Robbie Brenner, Kevin McKeon and Jeff Kwatinetz will serve as the co-producers of the film.

“Signal Hill will be centered in the 1981 wrongful death case of college football star Ron Settles. Signal Hill police ruled that Settles had hanged himself in a city jail cell in despair over his arrest for speeding, but Cochran suspected foul play and persuaded the Settles family to request that the body is exhumed for an autopsy, which showed Settles had been choked to death. The Settles family was subsequently awarded $1 million in a civil suit against the Southern California city,” an official statement from the film’s team read, as stated in the same report.

Foxx’s character Pratt will be represented by Cochran, played by Anthony Mackie, in helping to overturn a conviction that sent Pratt to prison for 27 years for a 1968 murder case. Cochran will also be seen settling a false imprisonment suit for Pratt for $4.5 million.

The chemistry of Hackford and Foxx has previously been a hit, as Ray got Foxx an Oscar for best actor and Hackford received nominations for best picture and best director.