Deadline has confirmed that up-and-coming British actor Malachi Kirby has been cast as Kunta Kinte in A+E Networks’ remake of Alex Haley’s seminal Roots. The event TV series will follow the iconic character as he is captured from his homeland Gambia and sold into slavery in America, along the way witnessing the American Revolution and Civil War.
Roots starts shooting next month in South Africa and New Orleans and will air in 2016 on Lifetime, A+E and the History Channel. Haley’s opus was previously broadcast in a landmark adaptation in 1977 with LeVar Burton in the lead role.
Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal, Alison McDonald and Charles Murray have written the new adaptation.
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SOURCE: Deadline, Ali Jaafar
