Samuel L. Jackson is joining Kevin Hart’s Peacock series “Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist.”
Jackson is set to play notorious gangster Frank Moten, who is also known as the “Black Godfather.” Hart will also be cast in the show and is an executive producer.
According to the description, the series will take place in 1970 and tell the “infamous story of how an armed robbery during the night of Muhammad Ali’s historic comeback fight. The robbery “changed not only one man’s life but an entire city’s destiny.”
Will Packer is named as an executive producer alongside Hart, and it is based on Packer’s podcast “Fight Night.” The podcast consists of more than 10 episodes and was first broadcast in 2020. The storyline says that “On Oct. 26, 1970, Muhammad Ali triumphantly returned to the world of boxing in Atlanta, Georgia. But every national front-page headline the next morning featured the story of one of the biggest heists in history. At the center of it all – a hustler named ‘Chicken Man.’
“On FIGHT NIGHT, J.D. Hudson, one of the first black detectives in Atlanta’s desegregated police force helped lead Muhammed Ali into the ring. The next day, he was assigned to the robbery by the chief of police. When asked by a journalist years later, ‘When did the investigation end?’ J.D. summed it up perfectly, ‘When everybody was dead.’ ”
Jackson is one of the most decorated actors today, known for his work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe where he plays Nick Fury. He’s also starred in Shaft, Snakes on a Plane, Unbreakable, Glass, and more.
