EXCLUSIVE: Fast-rising filmmakers Travon Free and Martin Roe have signed with CAA for illustration, on the identical time saying the Paramount Pictures movie Razorblade Tears, primarily based on the New York Times bestselling novel by S.A. Cosby, as their subsequent undertaking.
The pic marking their narrative function directorial debut can be produced by Top Gun: Maverick‘s Jerry Bruckheimer. The story follows Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in frequent apart from a prison previous and a love for his or her useless sons, who band collectively of their determined need for revenge. In their quest to do higher for his or her sons in loss of life than they did in life, the pair of hardened males will confront their very own prejudices about their sons and one another, as they rain down vengeance upon those that damage their boys.
Flatiron Books revealed Razorblade Tears in July 2021. In addition to directing, Free and Roe will rewrite the script — working from an authentic draft by Charm City Kings‘ Sherman Payne.
The pair most lately wrapped manufacturing on the upcoming Bishop Sycamore soccer documentary BS High, which can bow on HBO and HBO Max at a date that’s not but been disclosed. (Free additionally produced the Oscar-shortlisted documentary brief 38 on the Garden on NBA trailblazer Jeremy Lin, with that movie from Frank Chi bowing on HBO Max final fall.)
A pivotal second within the careers of Free and Roe got here when the Netflix-acquired brief Two Distant Strangers, which they wrote and directed — chatting with racially-motivated police violence within the 12 months of George Floyd’s homicide — received the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short. The duo additionally lately claimed a Sports Emmy for writing and directing What Agnes Saw, a brief movie a few 100-year-old Olympian, which was performed as a part of the opening ceremony throughout final 12 months’s Tokyo Olympics.
Free lately bought wrote an untitled spy thriller which was picked up by Apple in a multi-studio bidding conflict and has Idris Elba set to star, with Simon Kinberg producing. He’s additionally recognized for his work in tv, as a producer or supervising producer on such collection as Harlem, Wilmore, Black Monday and Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, which earned him an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special, in addition to Any Given Wednesday, Camping, and most lately, Winning Time for HBO and Adam McKay. Free was beforehand a workers author for The Daily Show, profitable an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series in 2015.
Through his business manufacturing firm Dirty Robber, of which he’s the Founder and Creative Director, Roe has directed, exec produced, and helped create the docuseries Wiz Khalifa: Behind the Camera for Apple, Breaking2 for National Geographic, We Are the Champions and Heist for Netflix, and Tom vs. Time for Facebook, which earned him a Sports Emmy for Outstanding Serialized Sports Documentary, amongst others.
Free continues to be represented by AGI Entertainment Media & Management and Jared Levine at Yorn, Levine, Barnes; Roe by 3 Arts and Matthew Levy at Hansen, Jacobson, Teller.
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