DreamWorks and Warner Bros. team up for Martin Luther King Biopic

DreamWorks and Warner Bros. are currently trying to get a new untitled Martin Luthor King Jr. biopic film project off the ground. The studio is currently in negotiations with screenwriter Kario Salem, to write the script for the film. Salem is best known for writing the Robert De Niro and Edward Norton heist film The Score.

In 2009 DreamWorks acquired the life rights of the civil rights leader, and brought on Sam Nappi, Suzanne de Passe and Madison Jones to produce the film. The studio secured the cooperation of the King estate, and also has access to King's intellectual property, including his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

Paul Greengrass was working on getting his own Martin Luther King movie called Memphis off the ground at Universal Pictures, but it ended up falling apart and Universal dropped it. Now Greengrass is independently looking for funding. Director Lee Daniels is also in the process of trying to put together a film based on the 1960s marches in Selma, Ala., who has David Oyelowo cast as King. 

According to THR "One major reason for the hurdles, according to sources, is the disapproval of the MLK estate, which is not afraid to exert pressure to stall projects it deems as unflattering to the civil rights leader."

Warner Bros. had been working on another biopic for several years and had a script in "deep development" being written by Salem. Apparently the writer has done three-and-a-half years worth of research and interviews when writing that screenplay. So they decided to team up with DreamWorks to make one film that had the approval of the King estate. 

Nappi, de Passe and Jones are still on board as producers. Dexter King, Bernice King and Martin Luther King II are acting as exec producers. With the King estate backing the project and two major studios developing it, it looks like this film is going to get made.