Kathryn Bigelow’s last two films have hit the zeitgeist with remarkable accuracy—The Hurt Locker, the best picture Oscar winner of 2009, arrived just as the horrors of Iraq seemed to be receding enough to examine, while Zero Dark Thirty opened not even two years after the killing Osama bin Laden that it depicted. For a while it seemed that Bigelow’s film would be another hot topic adjacent to the military—the capture and subsequent court martial of Bowe Bergdahl. But now she and collaborator Mark Boal have shifted to a story that may be even more urgent.
To be clear, their next project is a period piece, an untitled crime story set in 1967 Detroit. But it’s also, as Deadline points out, set amid that city’s devastating riots, which hasted both the flight of white residents from the city and Detroit’s excruciating economic decline. Speaking to Deadline, Boal described the story as “a very timely tale that deals with systemic racism in a way I think is relevant to contemporary audiences.” All it takes is a single glimpse at a current-day Black Lives Matter protest, or Detroit’s ongoing revival, to know exactly what he means.
As for Bergdahl, the filmmakers have not backed away, as evidenced by Boal’s cooperation in the ongoing second season of Serial, which documents Bergdahl’s five-year capture by the Taliban. But with Bergdahl’s court martial trial pushed until the summer, Boal and Bigelow have sensibly opted to tell a story that is complete, at least narratively. “It felt like the right thing to do to go ahead with the Detroit project, which was finished, and tell that story now,” Boal said. “We will circle back to Bergdahl when the military proceedings are resolved.”
Aimed for release in 2017, the Detroit project could spark conversation of a more internal kind in Hollywood, as the uproar over the all-white acting Oscar nominees continues. Bigelow and Boal’s film will almost certainly feature more African-Americans in its cast than, say, Spotlight. Between this, Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation, Don Cheadle’s Miles Ahead, and dozens of other intriguing projects that may now find new audiences in a Hollywood aiming to make a change, the next few years should be a fascinating time for black history on film. About time, right?
