King Richard — the movie that will star Will Smith as the father of tennis greats Venus and Serena Williams — has found its director in Sundance breakout Reinaldo Marcus Green.
King Richard will tell the true-life story of Richard Williams, who trained his two daughters to play tennis, beginning on cracked courts in Compton, California, and on to coaching them to Grand Slam wins and shaping them into two of the greatest players in the sport. Zach Baylin wrote the screenplay.
Tim and Trevor White (The Post) will produce under their Star Thrower Entertainment banner, alongside Smith and his Overbrook Entertainment banner.
Warner Bros. picked up the package in a heated bidding war that included Paramount, Sony’s TriStar, MRC and Barack and Michelle Obama’s Netflix-based Higher Ground Productions.
Green, repped by WME, made his directorial debut with Monsters and Men, starring John David Washington and Anthony Ramos, which was picked up by Neon out of the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. He most recently completed the Mark Wahlberg-starrer Good Joe Bell.
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