Ava DuVernay’s long-awaited Central Park Five limited series has a teaser and a premiere date. The true story of five teenage boys of color who were falsely convicted of rape in the early ’90s — Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise — the four-part “When They See Us” will hit Netflix May 31.
The emotional teaser follows one young man as he gets ready to go out, is arrested for no reason, and ends up in a holding cell with four other boys. A woman’s voice, presumably his mother’s, narrates the beginning of the spot. “You watch ’em grow and you start to think you did a good job,” she says. “And then one night, you look away.”
Another woman provides voiceover later. Apparently instructing law enforcement officers on how to handle the rape case, she commands, “You go into those projects and you stop every little thug you see.” It’s barely a dog whistle: she believes people of color did this and wants them convicted quickly. It doesn’t even matter if the kids they bring in actually committed the crime or not.
Created, directed, and co-written by DuVernay, “When They See Us” will trace the Central Park Five case from 1989, when the rape occurred, to McCray, Richardson, Salaam, Santana, and Wise’s exoneration in 2002 to their settlement with New York City in 2014. Attica Locke (“Empire”), Robin Swicord (“Little Women”), and Michael Starrburry (“Legends of Chamberlain Heights”) penned the series with DuVernay.
“When They See Us'” ensemble cast includes Jovan Adepo (“The Leftovers”), Justin Cunningham (“Succession”), Jharrel Jerome (“Moonlight”), Freddy Miyares (“Elementary”), Chris Chalk (“Gotham”), Vera Farmiga, Niecy Nash, Felicity Huffman, Storm Reid (“A Wrinkle in Time”), Kylie Bunbury (“Pitch”), Adepero Oduye (“Pariah”), John Leguizamo, and Michael K. Williams (“The Wire”).
DuVernay’s OWN family drama “Queen Sugar” will return for Season 4 later this year. She exec produced “The Red Line,” a limited series about a racially-charged police shooting that will bow April 28 on CBS. A Prince docuseries and an adaptation of Octavia Butler’s “Dawn” are among the other TV projects on the “13th” filmmaker’s slate. She’s also set to direct “The New Gods” for the big screen, a DC Comics adaptation about a group of deities who come into existence after the gods of classic mythology are killed. The project marks the second time DuVernay has helmed a $100 million film. She became the first black woman to do so with last year’s “A Wrinkle in Time.”
