MACRO and Franklin Leonard to Produce Reginald F. Lewis Biopic ‘Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun?’

variety.com:

Angelique Jackson The late pioneering Black businessman Reginald F. Lewis is getting the biopic treatment from Charles D. King’s MACRO and The Black List founder Franklin Leonard.Based on Lewis’ bestselling autobiography, “Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun?,” the drama will chronicle the improbable, “only-in-America” story of how Lewis rose to become the richest African American in the United States.

A writer and director are yet to be attached.The film follows Lewis as he broke glass ceilings from Baltimore to Harvard Law School (where he was the first person admitted without taking the LSAT and before even applying) to Wall Street to Kansas to Paris, up until his tragic, sudden death from a brain tumor in 1993 at the height of his powers.

He was 50 years old. Lewis was the first African American to raise a billion dollars and commanded the business world’s attention in 1987, with his $1 billion acquisition of Beatrice International Foods, making it the largest Black-owned business in the United States.As the story traverses from boardrooms to family homes to lavish soirees, audiences will also experience how systemic racism takes a toll behind the scenes, even when an African American person is a proven master of the universe.Producing alongside King and Leonard are MACRO’s Jelani Johnson and Poppy Hanks.

Lewis’ widow Loida Lewis and his daughters Christina and Leslie Lewis will executive produce the project. Josh Green also serves as an executive producer, while Chris Lyons is billed as co-producer..