DreamWorks Studios’ announcement Tuesday that it plans a big-screen epic on the life of Martin Luther King Jr. quickly sparked a new battle among his three feuding children.
Dexter King, who lives in California, negotiated the sale of rights by the King estate for what he hopes will be “the definitive film” on his father’s life and legacy, he said in a press release.
But his brother and sister, Atlantans Martin Luther King III and Bernice King, said they only learned of the deal in an e-mail from him Tuesday morning as DreamWorks announced the film project.
They don’t consider the deal valid and plan to fight it, Bernice King said in an interview later Tuesday.
“We are taking action. We cannot reveal what it is at this time,” she said.
“Dexter King has entered into an agreement without approval of his shareholders,” she said. “It’s about Dexter King and the empire he is trying to build with Madison Jones.”
Jones, a longtime associate of Dexter King’s, and former Motown Records executive and film producer Suzanne de Passe worked on the deal with DreamWorks and heavyweight filmmaker Steven Spielberg, according to de Passe. Spielberg, Jones and de Passe would be co-producers.
De Passe, in a phone interview, declined to say how much the deal is worth.
Dexter King, 48, who could not be reached Tuesday, is the chief executive of the King estate. Martin Luther King III, 51, and Bernice King, 46, have been contending legally with him for months over its control and other issues.
De Passe said she was aware of ongoing legal fights between the three King siblings.
“But that has no real bearing on [the film],” de Passe said, a comment echoed by a DreamWorks spokeswoman.
Spielberg said in a DreamWorks press release he hoped to bring a movie “of undeniable power that we can all be proud of” to the screen.
De Passe said the next step will be hiring screenwriters, and that production could be two years away.
The three King siblings have gone to court in Georgia over control of the corporation that controls their parents’ legacy. That case revolves around papers of their mother, Coretta Scott King, that Dexter is trying to use for a biography and that Martin and Bernice King are trying to block.
Martin and Bernice King were also angered by a deal cut by Dexter King and a record companyfor recordings of their father.
Andrew Young, the former Atlanta mayor, diplomat and lieutenant of Martin Luther King Jr., said a movie by Spielberg — maker of “Schindler’s List” and “Saving Private Ryan,” among other films — might be the best way to tell the slain civil rights leader’s story.
“We’ve had few documentaries but we’ve never had a film that has the budget and the cinematography and the spirit that is capable of telling the King story,” Young said.
“His work was Dreamworks and we all grew up on his dream.”
Young also said such a film has been Dexter’s King’s longtime goal.
“Dexter has been single-minded in his pursuit of this effort … What he has been looking for is a major motion picture production.”
He said he thought Martin and Bernice King had better accepted that Dexter King was in control of at least this aspect of their father’s legacy.
“They have gotten a bad rap but they have given a bad rap to each other,” he said of the three children.
“I think Dexter is a loner. He would have been a hero if he had … continued the legacy by feeding the hungry or if he had gone into politics. But he has always thought he had the responsibility of communicating his father’s and mother’s legacy globally. I think the other two didn’t feel that way, and I could see both sides.”
“They are all accomplished in their own way but none of them are their father and we can’t expect them to be their father.”
Young said the film will have a hard time pleasing everyone.
“The problem is that nobody will like the movie in the Movement,” Young said. ” I don’t know who they can get to play Martin Luther King.”
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