How To Get Away On The Underground Railroad: Viola Davis To Play Harriet Tubman In New Biopic

Viola Davis Will Play Harriet Tubman In New HBO Biopic

Viola Davis will star as the iconic leader of the Underground Railroad…

Via Deadline:

HBO Films has teamed with writer Kirk Ellis, producer Doug Ellin and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin TV for a project about Harriet Tubman, with Oscar nominee Viola Davis set to portray the famous abolitionist.

Based on the biography Bound For The Promised Land by historian Kate Clifford Larson, the film, now in development, tells the story of American hero Tubman. Born a slave, she escaped and, via an intricate escape network of secret routes and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad, she led more than 300 slaves to freedom in the North and later fought with the Union during the Civil War.

Cliff Dorfman, who had optioned the book, was a writer on the HBO comedy Entourage, created and executive produced by Ellin, who has a deal with the pay cable network. All key auspices have strong ties to HBO. Ellis wrote the Emmy-winning HBO mini John Adams, while Amblin TV (then DreamWorks TV) was behind two other Emmy-winning historical HBO miniseries, Band Of Brothers and The Pacific, as well as the upcoming movie All The Way, directed by Jay Roach and starring Bryan Cranston.

Will you be watching???