In 1989, in New York’s Central Park, five young African American, and Latino, teenagers from Harlem were wrongly convicted of a horrific crime. Netflix’s original narrative series, The Central Park Five, created by Ava DuVernay, who will write and direct the four episodes follow the miscarriage of justice that engulfed Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise.
Stepping in front of the camera is Chris Chalk (Gotham) who will play Adult Yusef Salaam; Newcomers Freddy Miyares and Justin Cunningham will play Adult Raymond Santana and Adult Kevin Richardson, respectively. Together, they will star along sideJharrel Jerome and Jovan Adepo (Adult Antron McCray) as the adult men in the Central Park Five case. Jerome will portray Adult Korey Wise in addition to Young Korey Wise. Ethan Herisse (Miss Virginia) will play Young Yusef Salaam; Marquis Rodriguez (Chicago Fire) will play Young Raymond Santana, Jr.; Caleel Harris (Goosebumps 2) will play Young Antron McCray; Asante Blackk will play Young Kevin Richardson. Together with Jerome, they will portray the young teenagers wrongfully accused in 1989.
The cast also includes Michael K. Williams, Vera Farmiga, John Leguizamo, Felicity Huffman, Jharrel Jerome, Jovan Adepo, Niecy Nash, Aunjanue Ellis, Kylie Bunbury, Marsha Stephanie Blake, and Storm Reid.
This case gripped the country, and the four episode limited series will span from the spring of 1989, when each was first questioned about the incident, to 2014 when they were exonerated and a settlement was reached with the city of New York.
Executive producing with DuVernay is Jeff Skoll and Jonathan King from Participant Media, Oprah Winfrey from Harpo Films, Jane Rosenthal and Berry Welsh from Tribeca Productions will executive produce the limited series alongside DuVernay through her banner, Forward Movement.
Filming has begun in New York City, with the limited Netflix series to be released in 2019.
