As the man who dished out the titular warning in Jordan Peele’s Get Out, and considering his standout work in Donald Glover’s Atlanta, Lakeith Stanfield is making a real name for himself. Now he’s set to lead a comic book adaptation – and while it’s not something on the scale of Marvel or DC, the project sounds much more intriguing and idiosyncratic.
According to Deadline, Stanfield is being lined up to take the lead role in Prince of Cats, based on Ron Wimberly’s Vertigo comic which reimagines Romeo & Juliet as a 1980s hip-hop story with Tybalt in the lead role. Expect street-level sword-fights in Brooklyn, set against the backdrop of the rise of rap music. The project is in early development stages – the comic is being adapted for Legendary by Selwyn Sefyu Hinds, who has a history in producing hip-hop documentaries, but a director is yet to be attached.
UK audiences should next see Stanfield in Sorry To Bother You, a surreal satire on race set in the world of telemarketing, which received critical acclaim in the US this summer. Boots Riley’s film doesn’t have a UK release date yet, but one is expected to be announced soon. Stanfield is also set to appear in Fede Alvarez’s The Girl In The Spider’s Web in November.
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