After collaborating with Roger Guenveur Smith on film adaptations of A Huey P. Newton Story and Rodney King, Spike Lee will team up with the theatre artist once again to bring Frederick Douglass Now to the screen.

According to Variety, Lee will direct the title for Buffalo 8.

Smith's solo show combines excerpts from Douglass' writing with his own high-energy lyrical prose to explore not just the life and legacy of the abolitionist, but also current race relations and hardships Black Americans face.

Since developing the piece as an undergraduate, Smith (Do the Right Thing) has presented Frederick Douglass Now in various incarnations, including an Off-Off-Broadway run in 2009 and a Los Angeles bow at Bootleg Theater in 2014.

Jazz composer Marc Anthony Thompson will pen the score, having previously worked on Smith and Lee's earlier stage-to-screen ventures.