Idris Elba & David Oyelowo Combine Talents For ‘Things Fall Apart’

Idris Elba and David Oyelowo have found success as Black British actors on the world stage. Now, they are combining their talents for a new adaptation of a renowned African novel.

Elba will star in, and Oyelowo will co-produce a series based on the 1958 novel Things Fall Apart, Nigerian author Chinua Achebe’s account of the African warrior Okonkwo, whose attempt to save his people from colonization leads to his downfall.  The novel, one of the most popular of all-time in African literature, has been translated into more than 60 languages.

There has already been a 1971 movie and a 1987 miniseries based on the book, the latter a 13-part miniseries aired on Nigerian television. In this adaptation, Elba will play Okonkwo. Although he grew up in Britain, as did Oyelowo, both have shown interest in telling both African and African-American stories.

Elba, who is Ghanian and Sierra Leonian, played the sinister Commandant in Beasts of No Nation, based on the true story of child soldiers in conflict. Oyelowo, who played the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma, is now starting in Lawmen: Bass Reeves: on Paramount+ about the legendary true-life hero of the American West.

This version of Things Fall Apart will be done by A24, which has received deserving acclaim for its diverse and eclectic catalog of films and TV projects. Achebe, who died in 2013, also wrote the sequels No Longer at Ease and Arrow of God after Things Fall Apart which could provide material for the future if the first season of the series is successful.

“Storytelling of any cultural slant is important because that’s how we learn and grow,” Elba told XONecole in 2022. “We need to tell each other stories so we can understand. The African narrative has always been peppered with something negative. It’s always been peppered with, you know, a misunderstanding of that continent. So as a story maker, I’m really keen to try to correct, to some degree, that story, that narrative.”

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