Tobey Maguire is attached to star in The Crusaders, a drama about the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case, Variety reports. Gary Ross, for whom Maguire starred in Pleasantville and Seabiscuit, is attached to direct the Universal film.
The project is based on Jack Greenberg’s memoirs Crusaders in the Courts. Maguire would play Greenberg, an idealistic lawyer fresh out of law school who joined with NAACP Legal Defense Fund head and future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall to win a Supreme Court case that ruled segregation in American schools was illegal.
Ross will next direct Universal drama The Free State of Jones, about rebellion in Mississippi during the Civil War and Reconstruction, Variety notes.
Danny Strong, who wrote the Emmy-nominated Recount for HBO, has been hired to write the script.
Recount was Strong‘s first script credit, but he is also known as an actor. Aside from recurring roles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Gilmore Girls, he also played small parts in Pleasantville and Seabiscuit.
