Sony Pictures Classics (SPC) has picked up Miles Ahead, the Don Cheadle biopic delving into the life of jazz icon Miles Davis. The film, starring and directed by Cheadle, focuses on Davis as he rebounds from his ‘quiet period’ in the late ’70s when he stopped practicing and performing. While Miles Ahead will debut on the New York Film Festival’s closing night October 11, it does not yet have a theatrical release date.
“What Don Cheadle has done here with the spirit of Miles Davis is truly astounding,” said SPC in a statement. “We are not only witnessing for the first time this part of Miles Davis’ story as it deserves to be told, but also the birth of a major film director who happens to portray the iconic [musician] in a jaw dropping performance.”
Along with Cheadle, the film also stars Ewan McGregor as a Rolling Stone writer helping to get the rights back to Davis’ music, Emayatzy Corinealdi as his longtime love interest Frances Taylor, as well as Michael Stuhlbarg, and Keith Stanfield.
“With the family’s blessing and Miles’ tenets on creativity as our guide, we used these cloistered years as a jumping off point to compose the story of a self-exiled artist creating his own ‘centrifugal adventure’ to spin himself back into playing music,” said Cheadle in a statement.
The L.A. Times surmises that the film will “likely arrive this fall” in order to meet deadlines for awards. For Cheadle, it’ll be the end of a journey to document his longtime hero for which he spent significant time learning the trumpet and even crowd-sourced the funds for the film himself, according to Entertainment Weekly.
