Idris Elba Narrating & Producing Nat Geo Doc ‘The Color of Victory: Heroes of WW2’

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Idris Elba is narrating and exec producing a Nat Geo series about people of color who fought during World War Two.

Nat Geo’s Tom McDonald has also unveiled shows on the FBI and a groundbreaking new DNA project being used to identify John and Jane Does across America, as he says he wants to cement the network’s reputation as a “brand of record.” Produced by October Films and Elba’s Green Door Pictures, The Color of Victory: Heroes of WW2 [working title] will see the Luther star focus on three unsung heroes per episode who have previously not been given the spotlight via premium dramatization, character portraits and archive.

Elba, whose grandfather served in World War Two, will highlight roles played in Dunkirk, Pearl Harbor and D-Day, as he reveals how the war experiences of people of color directly inspired post-war movements for freedom that swept the globe.

McDonald said October pitched him the project by showing him World War Two photos and asking “What do you think is missing from these pictures?” “The answer of course was people of color and I realized I didn’t know any stories about them from World War Two,” he told Deadline. “So this felt like a genuinely fresh and original way into a perennial subject.” McDonald last commissioned Elba when he was at the BBC for 2013’s King of Speed and he credited him for bringing “fresh eyes” and a “personal connection,” while comparing the series in scope to Nat Geo Emmy-winner 9/11: One Day in America.