Oscar-nommed Don Cheadle to star in “Prince of Darkness” bio

PanARMENIAN.Net - Don Cheadle will star in and produce “Prince of Darkness,” a biopic of 19th Century black millionaire Jeremiah G. Hamilton, Variety said.

Steven Baigelman, who co-wrote the “Miles Ahead” screenplay with Cheadle, has been tapped to adapt the “Prince of Darkness” script from Shane White’s book “Prince of Darkness: The Story of Jeremiah G. Hamilton, Wall Street’s First Black Millionaire.”

White’s book portrays Hamilton as a larger-than-life character who defied convention during the period and amassed a $2 million fortune by the time of his death in 1875. He dealt extensively in the white business world, married a white woman, bought a mansion in rural New Jersey, and owned railroad stock on trains he was not legally allowed to ride.

When Hamilton died, he was often referred to as the richest black man in the U.S. White’s book was the winner of the 2015 Society for Historians of the Early American Republic Best Book Prize.

Cheadle directed, produced, and starred in the 2015 Miles Davis biopic “Miles Ahead.” He has extensive credits dating back to 1995’s “Devil in a Blue Dress” and including “Boogie Nights,” “Out of Sight,” “Traffic,” the Ocean’s Eleven franchise, “Crash,” and as James Rhodes/War Machine in the “Iron Man” and “Captain America” movies. His role on Showtime’s “House of Lies” has earned him four Emmy nominations, and he received an Oscar nomination for “Hotel Rwanda.”