Jake Giles Netter/© 2019 WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC. (LOS ANGELES) — After dropping a teaser Tuesday, Michael B. Jordan released the full trailer Wednesday for his legal drama Just Mercy, co-starring Jamie Foxx.
Jordan stars as attorney Bryan Stevenson, and Foxx plays his client Walter McMillian, a young black man sentenced to death in 1987 in Alabama for a crime he didn’t commit.
As previously reported, the film is based on Stevenson’s 2014 New York Times best-selling memoir of the same name. Just Mercy chronicles the real-life story of Stevenson, a civil right activist who founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal center for inmates who did not receive proper legal representation.
In the clip, Stevenson tells his mother, “The first time I visited death row, I wasn’t expecting to meet somebody the same age as me. From a neighborhood just like ours. It could have been me, momma.”
She responds, “Look, what you’re doing is going make a lot of people upset.”
To which Stevenson replies, “You always taught me to fight for the people who need the help most.”
When Stevenson speaks to McMillan and explains that he’ll attempt to have his sentence reversed, the convict replies, “You really don’t know what you’re into down here in Alabama, when you’re guilty from the moment you’re born.”
The film also stars O’Shea Jackson Jr. from Straight Outta Compton, Mudbound’s Rob Morgan and Captain Marvel’s Brie Larson.
Just Mercy will open in select theaters on December 25, followed by a nationwide release on January 10, 2020.
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