Yet another major biopic is underway in Hollywood.
This time, award-winning actor Don Cheadle will star in the upcoming Miles Davis focused film, Kill the Trumpet Player.
According to Slash Film, the project was shelved for years due to unknown reasons. Not only will Cheadle be working in front of the camera, this will be his first time in the director’s chair.
Actors Ewan McGregor and Zoe Saldana will co-star in the film as well.
To be clear, the film will not follow Davis’ complete life. Rather, it will take a closer look at a particular few days in the early ’80s when Davis was fighting to “steal his music back.” It’s the same time period in which Davis was out of the public eye and often plagued with drug abuse, emotional breakdowns and more.
Back in 2011, Cheadle said he decided not to do a complete overview of Davis’ life because PBS would do a better job. “We didn’t want to try to cram into a 90-minute movie, or even 120-minute movie, every bit of information that we could,” said Cheadle. “We wanted to create a piece of art, a piece of film, that would intrigue people and maybe want to make them do their own investigations of his life, and decide what his life and music meant to them.”
A release date is not known.