Antoine Fuqua to direct, produce new 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'
Antoine Fuqua called helming the all-Black film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play "an honor." Credit: Getty Images for Heart of Los Angeles / Tommaso Boddi
"Training Day" director Antoine Fuqua will produce and direct the latest film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."
Stephen C. Byrd and Alia Jones-Harvey, producers of Broadway's 2008 all-Black production, said Wednesday that Fuqua's adaptation "will combine elements of the play with new storylines and weave them together to bring the production to the big screen." Fuqua, 55, said in a statement: "Bringing such a historic production to the screen is an honor I am thrilled to have alongside Stephen and Alia. They have shown their commitment to the project with two successful stagings on Broadway and the West End and know what it takes to translate this iconic drama from theatre to cinema."
The fifth of six Broadway productions of Williams' drama about a wealthy Southern family falling apart, the 2008 limited-run production starred James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose and, in his Broadway debut, Terrence Howard. No cast or other details for Fuqua's movie were announced. Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor headlined the first of several film adaptations in 1958.
