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EXCLUSIVE: Jesse Collins Entertainment and Concord Originals are partnering on a biopic of Robert Johnson, the influential musician nicknamed the King of the Delta Blues.
The project will mark the first authorized narrative feature on Johnson, a figure famous for his culture-defining influence on rock legends like the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and Led Zeppelin. Ridgeway Wilson (Black Girls Rock!) is set to write the script.
Born in Mississippi in 1911, Johnson pursued his passion for music partly as a way to avoid the sharecropper lifestyle prescribed to him by the American South. He took the tortuous lifestyle that came with being a Black man in that time and place and transformed his personal experience into music of universal relevance and global reach. When he died at 27, allegedly murdered by the jealous boyfriend of a former lover, his few recordings debuted posthumously at Carnegie Hall. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, on the basis that he should perhaps be considered the first ever rock star, in 1986.
A notable aspect of Johnson’s real-life story that the film will hone in on is the enduring myth that he sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for his guitar-playing prowess.
“My grandfather, Robert Leroy Johnson is truly an American music legend,” said Michael Johnson of the Robert Johnson Estate. “Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and The Rolling Stones – they will all tell you that Robert Johnson’s music helped to define the foundational roots of blues and rock n’ roll. He was one of the innovators of this musical genre and depicting the Black experience in America and his life is an important story that is significant to American history. Robert Johnson’s story shows how talent can shine through any adversity.”
Producers of the Robert Johnson biopic will include Jesse Collins and Dionne Harmon for Jesse Collins Entertainment (The New Edition Story), as well as Sophia Dilley (HBO’s Stax: Soulsville, USA) and Charles Hopkins (Paris Barclay’s Billy Preston: That’s the Way God Planned It) for Concord Originals. Executive producers are Wesley Adams and Bob Valentine for Concord Originals.
Stated Sophia Dilley, Executive Vice President, Concord Originals, “As the home of Robert Johnson’s music publishing, Concord has long understood the seismic impact that Johnson has had on the blues, rock n’ roll and music broadly. His incredible talent and the enduring myth that sprung out of it uniquely position his life story for a compelling biopic. We’re so excited to work with the Robert Johnson Estate, Jesse Collins Entertainment, Ridgeway Wilson and team to bring this story to life.”
Added Collins and Harmon of Jesse Collins Entertainment, “We are elated to partner with Concord Originals and The Robert Johnson Estate to tell this story with Ridgeway Wilson. Robert Johnson’s impact on music culture is unmatched.”
The film’s screenwriter, Wilson, interned at Jesse Collins Entertainment early in her career and has since risen through the ranks there to become a Segment Producer, notably working on the BET Awards, the BET Hip Hop Awards and Real Husbands of Hollywood. Wilson wrote and produced 2019 awards show Black Girls Rock! and was a producer of The 66th Grammys. Her other credits as a writer include BET’s Twenties After Show with B. Scott, and Asking for the Culture, the first satirical news show for The Shade Room. Additionally, she co-wrote An African Western, which made The Black List and was an Academy Nicholl Fellowship Quarterfinalist in 2015.
An Emmy-winning company well known for its work on music-focused projects, Jesse Collins Entertainment produced the critically acclaimed miniseries The New Edition Story and The Bobby Brown Story, and has also worked on series like American Soul and Real Husbands of Hollywood. In the arena of specials, they’ve produced the likes of the BET Awards, the Emmys, The Light We Carry: Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey, the Super Bowl Halftime Show, Jimmy Fallon’s Holiday Seasoning Spectacular, and more. Upcoming, the company is partnering with Flavor Unit Entertainment and Westbrook Studios to produce a slate of hip-hops biopics, the first of which will tell the story of Queen Latifah.
Current and upcoming projects for Concord Originals, the production arm of independent music company Concord, include the SXSW Audience Award winner Stax: Soulsville U.S.A., an Emmy-nominated docuseries about the legendary Stax Records for HBO; Shari & Lamb Chop directed by Lisa D’Apolito; Paris Barclay’s documentary Billy Preston: That’s The Way God Planned It about the celebrated musician of the same name; Alison Ellwood’s documentary feature Let the Canary Sing, on musical icon Cyndi Lauper, for Paramount+; and Ilya Chaiken’s music doc Pretty Ugly: The Story of the Lunachicks.
Wilson is represented by THORO Artists and Del Shaw Moonves.
