Dave Cunningham
They Cloned Tyrone is one of Netflix’s upcoming films starring Star Wars‘ John Boyega and Django Unchained‘s Jamie Foxx. The sci-fi film will serve as the directorial debut for Creed 2‘s writer Juel Taylor. Alongside Taylor penning the script for the film is Space Jam: A New Legacy and The Light Thief‘s Tony Rettenmaier.
Will happily watch anything starring Jamie Foxx, Teyonah Parris, and John Boyega, but *especially* a sci-fi movie. THEY CLONED TYRONE, a pulpy mystery directed by CREED II scribe Juel Taylor and produced by Foxx, is in the works at Netflix.
(📸Getty) pic.twitter.com/5jlmWA2btw
— NetflixFilm (@NetflixFilm) September 2, 2020
The production will be headed by apparently Netflix’s staple production company, MACRO, most notably Charles D. King and Poppy Hanks. If you’re unfamiliar, MACRO is responsible for Raising Dion and Chris Borelli’s upcoming Void series. As per usual, the production company has always specialized in representing people of color in the film and TV business. Believing in the power of representation, they have already gotten nine Oscar nominations and a win since 2015.
Here is the official description of the sci-fi film:
“A pulpy, sci-fi mystery caper in which an unlikely trio investigates a series of eerie events, alerting them to a nefarious conspiracy lurking directly beneath their hood. Fontaine, a neighborhood drug dealer, is shot dead by rival Isaac and then is very shocked to wake up in his bed the next morning unharmed. He and Slick Charles and Yo-Yo begin looking into the incident, and their search eventually leads them to a vast underground complex where a government – backed lab is performing experiments on the local Black population. Realizing that he is an artificial clone controlled by Nixon, Fontaine initially feels despair, but decides he needs to stand up to these white institutional overlords for the sake of his neighborhood.“
It’s a bit weird but you can actually look up the entire script online, if that’s one of your pastimes, I guess. The screenplay, on the other hand, was involved in The Black List 2019––a convening place for filmmakers to share and evaluate scripts.
John Boyega, during an interview with ComingSoon.net, said that the movie was a “stateside version of Attack the Block” and saying that this is “his [Juel Taylor’s] first feature, but there’s a reason why it attracted the likes of Jamie Foxx to his project. The script is phenomenal.”
It looks like if there’s anything we should look forward to, it’s the script and its storyline. Either way, Boyega is set to lead the sci-fi film, after being famous for his role as Finn in the latest Star Wars trilogy, as Tyrone Fontaine––the neighborhood drug deal aforementioned in the description of the film. During the interview, he also said that he was grateful for the opportunity to have worked on They Cloned Tyrone.
“This is me just going home for a bit. Like, this is stateside Attack the Block for me. I’m just more than excited to see a small little hood go through an alien experience. I’ve just come off of two kind of intense projects. Chase Palmer’s Naked Singularity…and then Steve McQueen’s Small Axe. So They Cloned Tyrone is just a chance for me to have fun… and chill.”
Alongside Boyega is a bunch of hard hitters in the business as well––one of which is Oscar-winning Jamie Foxx. With absolutely no need for an introduction, the man has starred in Django Unchained, Ray, Baby Driver, and one of the most requested members of The Amazing Spider-Man cast to reprise his role as Max Dillon/Electro. In the film, Foxx will be playing Slick Charles, the acquaintance of Fontaine and a runner of sex workers.
On the other side of the ring, Teyonah Parris will be portraying as Yo-Yo––Charles’ biggest sex worker. Parris’s career is another one to boast as she has starred in Mad Men, Netflix’s Dear White People, and Disney+ and Marvel’s WandaVision.
If all things go as planned, then the expected end in January will lead to a release towards the end of 2021 or early 2022.
