Cole and Green Join Previously Announced Lead Courtney B. Vance
Two-Season Series Hails from BAFTA-Winner Peter Moffat and Michael B. Jordan and Alana Mayo’s Outlier Society
NEW YORK, NY – JANUARY 23, 2020 – AMC announced today two additions to the cast of the upcoming drama 61st Street. Tosin Cole (Doctor Who, Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens) and Bentley Green (Snowfall) have joined Courtney B. Vance in the courtroom drama about a young black high school athlete entangled in the Chicago criminal justice system. 61st Street comes from BAFTA-winner Peter Moffat (Criminal Justice, The Night Of, Your Honor) and executive produced by Michael B. Jordan and Alana Mayo of Outlier Society (Just Mercy, David Makes Man). Produced by AMC Studios, the series, which has been ordered as a two-season television event with eight episodes per season, is set to debut in 2021. Production commences in late spring in Chicago.
61st Street is a propulsive courtroom drama that follows Moses Johnson, a promising, black high school athlete, who is swept up into the infamously corrupt Chicago criminal justice system. Taken by the police as a supposed gang member, he finds himself in the eye of the storm as police and prosecutors seek revenge for the death of an officer during a drug bust gone wrong.
Tosin Cole is set to portray the lead role of Moses, a kid from Chicago’s South Side. Athletic, smart, savvy, funny and a seriously gifted runner. His future is mapped out, he’s 24 hours away from leaving home to take up an athletics scholarship at a college in New Hampshire, which is when he has an encounter with the Chicago Police Department which ends in the death of a white officer and Moses’ arrest for his murder.
Bentley Green will play the role of Joshua, young brother of Moses. Joshua is in the middle of trying to work out how he’s going to be the man of the house when his older brother leaves for college when Moses is caught up in an encounter with the police which will change both their lives forever.
As previously announced, Vance will portray Franklin Roberts, a public defender in the twilight of his career serving the busiest courthouse in America. After promising his wife he’d retire to spend more time with their seventeen-year-old autistic son, Franklin realizes Moses Johnson is the case of a lifetime, one that can upend the entire Chicago judicial system, challenging the institutional racism and endemic corruption at its heart.
61st Street is executive produced by Jordan, Mayo and Hilary Salmon (MotherFatherSon, The Night Of, London Spy). Moffat serves as showrunner and executive producer alongside J. David Shanks (The Chi, Seven Seconds, Shots Fired). AMC Studios Content Distribution will manage worldwide sales.
About AMC
AMC is home to some of the most popular and acclaimed programs on television. AMC was the first basic cable network to ever win the Emmy® Award for Outstanding Drama Series with Mad Men in 2008, which then went on to win the coveted award four years in a row, before Breaking Bad won it in 2013 and 2014. The network’s series The Walking Dead is the highest-rated series in cable history. AMC’s current original drama series are Better Call Saul, Fear the Walking Dead, The Terror, Lodge 49, NOS4A2, as well as the forthcoming series Dispatches from Elsewhere, Quiz, a third show from the world of The Walking Dead, Soulmates, and the recently greenlit 61st Street and Kevin Can F**k Himself. AMC also explores authentic worlds and discussion with original shows like Talking Dead, AMC Visionaries and Ride with Norman Reedus. AMC is owned and operated by AMC Networks Inc. and its sister networks include IFC, SundanceTV, BBC America and WE tv. AMC is available across all platforms, including on-air, online, on demand and mobile.
About AMC Studios
AMC Studios is the in-house studio, production and distribution operation for AMC Networks Inc. AMC Studios’ first series, The Walking Dead, is the highest-rated series in cable history. Since then, AMC Studios has produced several critically acclaimed, award-winning and culturally distinctive originals for AMC including scripted series Fear the Walking Dead; The Terror anthology, Lodge 49, NOS4A2 and the upcoming Dispatches From Elsewhere, Soulmates, 61st Street and Kevin Can F**k Himself, as well as unscripted series: Ride with Norman Reedus, James Cameron’s Story Of Science Fiction, Eli Roth’s History of Horror and Hip Hop: The Songs that Shook America. The Studio has also produced for SundanceTV the Peabody Award-winning Rectify, original series Hap and Leonard, as well as the unscripted true crime franchise including Cold Blooded: The Clutter Family Murders and The Preppy Murder: Death in Central Park.
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