Colman Domingo's Nat King Cole Biopic Gets Title, New Updates

Unforgettable, Colman Domingo's Nat King Cole musical biopic, has been boarded by Lionsgate for international sales, Deadline reports. This comes just ahead of the European Film Market next week, where the film is expected to be shopped around to potential buyers.

via: Deadline

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.