Well… He was the star of Spike Lee's Da Brick, which got passed over by HBO as was announced in recent weeks, but Attack the Block star John Boyega (aka Baby Denzel as he's known in some circles) is said to be in talks to join Thandie Newton and Chiwetel Ejiofor in director Biyi Bandele's big screen adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel Half Of A Yellow Sun; Dominic Cooper is also in talks for one of the lead roles.
Assuming all goes as expected, shooting is expected to begin on the project next month on location in both Nigeria and London.
But WAIT… that's not all for Mr Boyega… Variety also adds that he's "in negotiations" to star in an indie sci-fi feature titled Creeping Zero, to be directed by Billy O'Brien.
Variety didn't have any info on that project, so I did a little digging to learn that it's based on a short story from a book of short stories by Jeff Noon titled Pixel Juice; the short story was made into a 3D short film/teaser, by the same director, which apparently made a splash that year at the Berlinale, where the producers went to look for money to make the feature version. I found a Facebook page that had some stills from it, as well as posts like this:
As promised, a couple of stills from the awesome CREEPING ZERO 3D teaser that caused a storm at Berlin. Some heavy duty financing to commence to get the feature length film realised…
So it looks like they got their "heavy duty financing" 2 years later (or at least most of it), as the film is scheduled to begin principal photography in the fall.
Synopsis reads:
60 years into the future, Civilization is divided. The Creeping Zero team are employed to protect their fellow humans from having their faces taken by the Fumati. But when your image can be stolen, how can you know who you are.
Obviously I'm intrigued; I haven't read the book, but will get to it… eventually… and I'm glad to see Boyega being sort for to star in the film adaptation.