Kobe Bryant To Host ‘Just Mercy’ Screening With Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx

Anita Bennett

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Kobe Bryant is teaming with the cast of Just Mercy to help promote Warner Bros’ critically acclaimed death row drama.

The NBA champion, who won an Oscar for producing the 2017 animated short Dear Basketball, will host a screening for guild members January 6 in Los Angeles, an individual attached to the film told Deadline.

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Cast members Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, Brie Larson, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Karan Kendrick and civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson will introduce the film at the event.

Stevenson founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit that provides legal representation to prisoners who may have been denied a fair trial, and wrote the bestselling memoir upon which the movie is based.

Just Mercy follows the true story of Walter McMillian (Foxx), a black man wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of a white woman in Alabama. The film centers on Stevenson (Jordan), who fights to prove McMillian’s innocence. As the young lawyer works to save McMillian from the electric chair, he must contend with systematic racism, good ol’ boy politics, and threats of violence for challenging the system.

Working with Stevenson is local advocate Eva Ansley, played by Larson. Jackson portrays death row inmate Anthony Ray Hinton, and Kendrick co-stars as Walter’s long-suffering wife, Minnie McMillian.

This past summer in a sit-down interview at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Miami, Jordan told me he personally lobbied Foxx to play McMillian.

“I called him and I thought he was perfect for it,” said Jordan, who produced the film through his Outlier Society banner. “It’s really hard to make movies in general, just everything has to line up perfectly, everybody’s schedule has to work out.”

Destin Daniel Cretton directs the drama and co-wrote the script. The film has won a string of critics awards, and Foxx recently picked up a SAG Award nomination in the best supporting actor category for his role.

Just Mercy arrives in theaters on Christmas Day in Los Angeles and New York, and goes nationwide January 10.

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