Jamie Foxx To Produce And Star In Amazon Studios’ ‘The Burial’ With Maggie Betts Directing, Datari Turner Co-Producing

Deadline is reporting that Oscar winner Jamie Foxx is set to produce and star in Amazon’s The Burial, with Maggie Betts on board to direct. Foxx joins the two-handed drama and will star opposite a legendary role currently being cast. Pulitzer Prize winner Doug Wright penned the screenplay.

Amazon Studios, Bobby Shriver Inc. and Double Nickel Entertainment are producing the upcoming off-kilter drama based on the New Yorker article by Jonathan Harr. Producers are Bobby Shriver and Double Nickel’s Adam Richman & Jenette Kahn. Datari Turner is also producing.

Based on a true story, after a bankrupt funeral home owner decides to sue a rival businessman over a handshake deal gone wrong, the owner hires a flamboyant attorney to handle the case.

Betts wrote and directed Novitiate, which won the Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Director at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. She also received a Gotham Award nomination for the film. Her 2010 Tribeca Film Festival breakout documentary The Carrier tells the inspiring story of an HIV-positive and pregnant mother in Africa trying to protect her baby from being born with HIV/AIDS.

Wright has written more than10 plays, most notably the Broadway success I Am My Own Wife, which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony for Best Play in 2004. Other Broadway titles include War Paint, Grey Gardens, Hands on a Hardbody and The Little Mermaid. He adapted his own play Quills for the 2000 movie, which was directed by Philip Kaufman and was nominated for three Oscars.