Mathew Knowles‘ life story is to be turned into both a movie and a limited series.
The showbiz patriarch — who is the father of Beyoncé and Solange Knowles — has teamed up with Say Unkel Entertainment to work on adaptations of his 2017 memoir, Racism From the Eyes of a Child.
According to Variety, the movie will cover the first half of the book, which recounted Mathew’s early years growing up amid the race riots in Alabama in the early 1960s, a time when he was one of only six black students to attend an all-white school and participated in peaceful protests. On one occasion, he was arrested four times in one day and on another, he was burned with a cattle prod.
The book also explains how the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Turner and Ralph Abernathy and their activism shaped Knowles’ early adulthood, as well as his parents’ influence.
“These are the men who made me proud and women who taught me to fight back,” he said.
A script for the movie is already complete and ready to take to market.
Knowles recently explained he and ex-wife Tina Knowles introduced their daughters to a wide variety of potential hobbies and interests so they could find their passions for themselves.
“I hope we taught by example. We’d take them to NASA, we would take them to science fairs, we’d take them to a library. We’d take them to sporting events [and] entertainment, and we wanted to see what they gravitated towards. It was always entertainment,” he told UsWeekly.
Beyoncé started her career when she competed on 1990s talent show “Star Search” as part of Girls Tyme along with Kelly Rowland before the band became known as Destiny’s Child with Michelle Williams but they ultimately lost out to Skeleton Crew.
Knowles went on to acknowledge that the TV talent show served as the starting point for other future pop superstars including the likes of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera — both of whom lost out to other competitors before going on to enjoy successful careers themselves — and noted how it is “important” to discuss failure because of how it often transforms itself into an “opportunity” for improvement.
“[Host] Ed McMahon shared, he says, ‘I don’t know why all of the people that constantly went on ‘Star Search’ go nowhere professionally.’ It’s the people that lose [who were successful], and that’s why it’s important to talk about failure because it’s an opportunity to grow,” he added.
