EXCLUSIVE: A Day to Die and Call Her King filmmaker Wes Miller has set the legal thriller Wildcards as his next feature and has cast Leon (Swarm, Five Heartbeats), Elise Neal (All of Us), Aries Spears (Mad TV), and Stakiah Lynn Washington (Angel City) in lead roles.
BLacklight (Call Her King) is financing with Andrew van den Houten, Wes Miller, Joseph O’Connor and Leon producing. Lloyd Watts is co-producing with Jessie Jalee, Chad Ghiron, and Elise Neal serving as executive producers. Also starring in the pic are Crew Morrow (The Bold and the Beautiful), Courtney Grace, Samantha Walkes (Orphan: First Kill), and Robert Catrini (Jack Reacher: Never Go Back).
Wildcards follows a jury deliberating the case of Theodore Sterling (Morrow), a privileged young man accused of sexual assault of a 20-something African-American woman (Lynn Washington). The prosecution is led by Assistant State Attorney James Jones (Spears), an overworked yet determined prosecutor, who faces off against Greg Sims (Leon), a veteran defense attorney with an unbroken 25-year winning streak.
The official synopsis reads: As the jury weighs the evidence, their contrasting backgrounds and beliefs ignite fierce debates, amplifying the tension inside the deliberation room. Meanwhile, the emergence of a Wildcard, an enigmatic witness claiming to know the truth about the night in question, throws the case into turmoil. Her connection to the accused and her motives add a layer of uncertainty, raising critical questions about bias, privilege, and the pursuit of justice.
Director Wes Miller is best known for A Day to Die (2022), starring Bruce Willis, and Call Her King (2024) starring Naturi Naughton, Lance Gross, and Jason Mitchell.
“I’ve always loved legal thrillers and I’m excited to work with this insanely talented cast to bring this piece to life,” Miller said of his next feature. “For me, it examines the discourse in our country and says more about what we can do together, than apart, wrapped in a fast-paced commercially viable thriller.”