Variety has confirmed that 2-time Academy Award winner Denzel Washington will direct the feature film Journal for Jordan, for Sony Pictures, which will star Michael B. Jordan. This will mark the first time that the actors have worked together.
The screenplay was penned by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Virgil Williams and is an adaptation of the 2009 best-selling memoir A Journal for Jordan: A Memoir of Love and Loss by Pulitzer-winning journalist Dana Canedy.
According to a description by Amazon, “In 2005, First Sergeant Charles Monroe King began to write what would become a two-hundred-page journal for his son in case he did not make it home from the war in Iraq. He was killed by a roadside bomb on October 14, 2006. His son, Jordan, was seven months old. A Journal for Jordan is a mother’s letter to her son about the father he lost before he could even speak–including a fiercely honest account of her search for answers about Charles’s death. It is also a father’s advice and prayers for the son he will never know. Finally, this is the story of Dana and Charles together–two seemingly mismatched souls who loved each other deeply and lost each other too soon.”
Jordan not only will play the staring role but is set to produce the project through his Outlier Society production company. Washington and Escape Artist’s Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, and Steve Tisch will also serve as producers.
Jordan is one of the hottest actors in the Hollywood landscape. He garnered critical acclaim for portrayal the Marvel comic villain Erik Killmonger in the blockbuster film Black Panther, the first Marvel movie to score a best picture Oscar nomination. He reprised his role as Apollo Creed’s son in the Rocky spinoff film series. Jordan starred in Creed II, and the sequel went on to gross over $200 million at the worldwide box office.