The Story of Emmett Till Is Heading to the Big Screen

Thanks to Chaz Ebert and Shatterglass Films, the story of Emmett Till is heading to the big screen.

The widow of American film critic, journalist and screenwriter Roger Ebert will adapt the Emmett Till book Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America into a motion picture.

In 1955, Emmett Till was 14 years old visiting relatives in Mississippi when he was kidnapped and brutally murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman. His face and body were so badly mutilated that his mother insisted on having an open-casket funeral to show the world what racism had done to her son.

Per Deadline: 

“The full Emmett Till story needs to be told now and told well as a narrative for our times, given all that is happening on American streets today, and Shatterglass Films are the people to tell it,” said Ebert, the widow of Roger Ebert.

Luke Boyce, Brett Hays and Jen Shelby are producing for Shatterglass, and Benson also is producing. Ebert and Nate Kohn are executive producing. The plan is to wrap principal photography next year after shoots in Chicago, the Mississippi Delta and Central Illinois.

Some will disagree, but we believe that Emmett’s story should be told, especially given the current state of race relations in America (as Chaz pointed out) and the hatred that still pervades our society.