Los Angeles: After “Bright”, Will Smith is returning to Netflix for “The Council”, a biopic on Nicky Barnes, who led a New York City crime syndicate that ruled Harlem in the 1970s and ’80s.
To be written by Peter Landesman, who written and directed Smith in “Concussion”.
According to the official logline, the film is the never-before told story of a crime syndicate consisting of seven African-American men who ruled Harlem in the 1970s and early 80s. No ordinary crime syndicate the men dreamed of a self-sufficient and self-policing African American city-state, funded by revolutionising the heroin trade.
The movie revolves around the Shakespearean court intrigue between The Council’s king, Nicky Barnes, dubbed “Mr Untouchable” by the New York Times, and all the different members as one unlikely rising protege emerges.
Barnes, who died in 2012, led an international drug trafficking ring, in partnership with the Italian-American Mafia, until his arrest in 1978. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and eventually became a federal informant.
