| Advertisement |
Feb. 11 (UPI) -- The third edition of National Geographic's Genius anthology drama series will focus on the late Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin and is scheduled to debut in early 2020. Previous seasons have explored the lives of scientist Albert Einstein and painter Pablo Picasso.
Advertisement
Pulitzer Prize-winning Topdog/Underdog playwright Suzan-Lori Parks has signed on as executive producer and showrunner for Genius: Aretha Franklin. Filming is slated to begin this summer.
No casting has been announced for the project yet.
Also producing are Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Francie Calfo, Gigi Pritzker, Ken Biller, Sam Sokolow, Clive Davis and Craig Kallman.
This will be the first scripted miniseries about Franklin, who died in August at the age of 76. The "Respect" and "Chain of Fools" singer produced more than 40 studio albums and several live albums over the course of her more-than six decade career.
Franklin won 20 Grammy Awards, including the Legend Award in 1991, the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994 and the MusiCares Person of the Year in 2008. She was also honored with three American Music Awards, a Golden Globe, two MTV Video Music Awards and three NAACP Image Awards.
"Aretha Franklin had the ability to empower generations through her iconic music, and I'm excited to finally be able to tell her story, a career passion of mine. All through her life she used her voice to elevate people and the causes she believed in, especially the women's and civil rights movements," Grazer said in a statement.
A biopic starring Jennifer Hudson is also in the works. It is based on the singer's memoir Aretha: From These Roots.
