Paramount has landed Elegance Bratton’s crime thriller, By Any Means, which stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Mark Wahlberg.
The studio has given the film a Labor Day weekend release later this year on Sept. 4. The film is a real-life inspired, Civil Rights Era pic set in Mississippi in 1966. Nicole Beharie, David Strathairn, Giancarlo Esposito, Josh Lucas and Ethan Embry also star in the film.
Per the logline, the film “a volatile partnership between a hardened mafia hitman and a young Black FBI agent as they are forced into an uneasy alliance to track down those responsible for the killing of civil rights leaders — uncovering a conspiracy that tests the limits of justice, loyalty, and survival.”
“This is a story about unlikely alliances forged under impossible circumstances — where justice is not clean, and the truth comes at a cost,” said Bratton in a statement, per Variety. “I wanted to explore what it means to confront violence not just as an act, but as a system — and what it demands of those caught inside it.”
Bratton’s film ‘The Inspection’ was critically acclaimed
Bratton made a splash with his 2022 A24 film, The Inspection, which is inspired by events in his life and starred Jeremy Pope and Gabrielle Union. He also previously directed the 2019 documentary Pier Kids, and more recently, the documentary Move Ya Body: The Birth of House.
The screenplay was written by Power Book III: Raising Kanan showrunner Sascha Penn. Bratton and Chester Algernal Gordon produce under Freedom Principle, while Alex Lebovici produces for Hammerstone Studios, Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee for Thunder Road, as well as Wahlberg and Stephen Levinson for Municipal.