Colman Domingo’s Nat King Cole Biopic ‘Unforgettable’ Heads To Market With Lionsgate & ‘Mudbound’, ‘La La Land’ Producers; Project Details Emerge – EFM

EXCLUSIVE: Details are emerging about two-time Oscar nominee Colman Domingo‘s musical biopic of legendary singer Nat King Cole, which will be called Unforgettable.

We can reveal that Lionsgate has boarded the project for international sales and will launch it ahead of next week’s European Film Market, where it’s likely to be an in-demand pre-sales title.

Sing Sing and Rustin star Domingo will play the iconic singer and has also co-written the script and will produce. The movie will chart Cole’s journey as musician and quiet revolutionary, navigating racial injustice, Hollywood sabotage and self doubt to ensure his legacy and help pave the way for future generations of artists and Black men and women. We hear the project is being pitched in the PG-13 realm so it’s expected to be broad appeal.

The aim is to film later this year and the project would likely mark Domingo’s directorial debut (he’s also attached to direct Sammy Davis Jr-Kim Novak movie Scandalous).

Domingo has written the script with Vernon Scott, and will produce alongside industry vets Cassian Elwes (The Butler), Charles D. King (Mudbound), William Rosenfeld (It’s What’s Inside), Poppy Hanks (Fences), Jimmy Edwards (The Beach Boys), Veronica Radaelli (Dead Man’s Wire) and Fred Berger (La La Land), who is coming off eight-time Oscar-nominated Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown.

Edwards is the president of Iconic Artists Group, which acquired a range of rights from the Nat King Cole estate in March 2022.

Singer, jazz pianist and actor Nathaniel Adams Coles (1919-1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, achieved mainstream success off the back of a string of hits, including his most recognized song, “Unforgettable.” His 1960 Christmas album The Magic of Christmas was the bestselling Christmas album released in the ’60s. Throughout his life, Cole faced intense racial discrimination, including being attacked on stage in Alabama. Stung by early criticism from Black press for playing to all-white audiences, Cole went on to boycott segregated venues and become a lifetime member of the NAACP and participated in the March on Washington. His NBC variety series The Nat King Cole Show became the first nationally broadcast TV show hosted by a Black American.

Domingo has wanted to tell the story for some time. The biopic was first reported two years ago but had gone quiet since. The actor has previous ties with the singer, as he co-wrote the play Lights Out: Nat ‘King’ Cole with Patricia McGregor, which premiered at the Geffen Playhouse. The play imagined what might have been going through the singer’s mind during his 1957 Christmas special on The Nat King Cole Show.

Longtime Fear the Walking Dead actor Domingo has Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day and the next season of HBO’s Euphoria upcoming. He also stars as Jackson family patriarch Joe Jackson in Lionsgate’s upcoming musical biopic Michael.

View this article at Deadline.