Originally attached to lead the film himself, Will Smith is now looking to offer the lead role in the Hurricane Katrina drama, The American Can, to the two-time Academy Award-winning actor, Denzel Washington, Vulture report.
The film has been written and will be directed by John Lee Hancock, the writer-director of The Blind Side, which won Sandra Bullock her Oscar for Best Actress two years ago.
The American Can is based on the real-life events in a New Orleans apartment building during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the most costly natural disaster in recorded history in the United States at more than bn. The film will tell the story of,
the real-life harrowing ordeal suffered by the residents of the American Can apartment complex when the levees broke. Trapped by eleven feet of fetid water for two days, a six-foot-seven ex-Marine named John Keller stayed behind to ward off looters and help care for the dozens of aged or infirm residents who couldn’t evacuate. After spending two futile days trying to flag down help, Keller ultimately succeeded in getting desperately needed food, water, and medical supplies air-dropped onto the complex only after finally moving dozens of aged and infirm residents onto the rooftop of American Can to catch rescuers’ attention.
In an interesting interview Keller gave with The Times-Picayune about the whole experience, he said,
““I could have got in that boat and paddled my ass out of here,” Keller says.
But he didn’t. He stayed.
“It sure wasn’t for money,” he says. “It wasn’t for recognition. It wasn’t to be no damn hero. What made me stay was the old people. I just realized that nobody else in here could have gotten those people out. They would have sat in here for five more days. And they didn’t have five more days. When I looked at all those old people, I thought about my grandmother and I wondered: Would I entrust my grandmother to be stuck out here at the mercy of these thugs?””
The project is one that Smith has been working on for two years, trying to get made. But after deciding to sign on to lead M. Night Shyamalan’s next project, One Thousand A.E., he chose to step aside and is now offering the role to Washington. He’s now reading the script and giving notes, and if it feels right for all parties involved, then the role will be his. It certainly has the makings for an incredible and moving film, and Washington is a man I love to watch playing the hero.
