Washington And Whitaker Debate For Child

What happens when Ghost Dog meets Malcolm X? One hell of an argument! That’s what we’ll get when Forest Whitaker takes on Denzel Washington in The Great Debate, a “fact-based” drama that Washington will direct next month in Louisiana for the Weinstein Co., says Variety.

Washington will play a hard-headed, no-nonsense debate team coach of a small East Texas college, who challenges Harvard’s champion debate squad in the 1930s. Washington will use his powerful clout to use The Great Debate as a platform to prove that he is as capable as a director as he is an actor. Whitaker will play the father of a debater who butt’s heads with Washington for the loyalty of his son. Expect the metaphoric debate to be as heated as the literal debate.

Although the plot may sound like a debate version of arm wrestling for the custody of a child, Oprah Winfrey and Kate Forte, as well as Todd Black and Joe Roth, are betting on as producers of the Robert Eisele authored script. Lord knows the Weinsteins need a winner after the Grindhouse double feature tanked over the weekend.

Production will begin once Whitaker is done with the in-production indie Winged Creatures, as Washington just wrapped American Ganster with Russell Crow and Ridley Scott directing.