MGM has acquired the rights to develop the feature musical Hope with three-time Grammy Award winner Chance the Rapper and his longtime manager Haight Films’ Pat Corcoran, who partnered with Tradecraft’s Scott Bernstein (Straight Outta Compton) for the project. Carlito Rodriguez (FOX’s Empire, HBO’s The Leftovers) will pen the original screenplay.
Told through original music from producer Nico Segal and his collaborators, Hope follows a group of Chicago teenagers that band together to turn art into action within their community.
Corcoran said, “From day one, our mission at Haight Films’ has been to apply Haight Brand’s artist-first and Chicago-proud ideology to the film space. We are incredibly excited to be working alongside Chance, MGM, and Scott Bernstein to bring this vision to life.”
“Chance and Nico are undoubtedly two of the most influential and innovative artists of their generation,” added Jonathan Glickman, president of the Motion Picture Group at MGM. “We feel thrilled, privileged, and eager to be collaborating with them on such a unique project.”
Grammy Award-winning songwriter and producer Nico Segal (fka Donnie Trumpet) will oversee the creation of the film’s original music. Segal, a longtime collaborator with Chance and The Social Experiment (a group formed by the two out of Chicago) notably released the 2015 album Surf to much critical acclaim.
Ash Sarohia (Killing Gunther) will oversee for Tradecraft and Mike Kadziulis, M.E. Barker and Scott Schwartz will oversee for Haight Films. Glickman and Adam Rosenberg, MGM’s Co-President of Production, are overseeing the project on behalf of the studio.
Chance the Rapper is a hip-hop artist, producer and social activist becoming the first streaming-only artist to win a Grammy Award for his album Coloring Book. His album also became the first to chart on the Billboard 200 based solely on streaming, coming in at Number 8. Chance has long given back to the Chicago community he grew up in including launching #SaveChicago with his father to combat gun violence; donating $1 million to local schools; and creating Social Works, an organization aimed at empowering youth through arts, education and civic engagement within the city.
(Photo Credit: Getty Images)
