André Holland stars as the political activist in the story of how one of the biggest studio bosses of the 1970s and the world of the social revolutionary collided.
Far from a biography of the founder of the Black Panther Party, the six-episode limited series based on Joshuah Bearman's magazine article of the same name offers the energy of a heist.
It tells the story of how Newton escaped the FBI and fled to Cuba with the help of famed Hollywood producer Bert Schneider (played by Alessandro Nivola) in perhaps the most ambitiously staged and doctored film production of all time.
“You’re the hot-shot producer, man, produce this,” Newton tells Schneider as they begin to cook up an elaborate plan to help the political activist evade a murder charge, as police attempt to pin him for the death of a 17-year-old sex trafficking victim in 1974.
Tiffany Boone stars alongside Holland as Newton's girlfriend Gwen Fontaine, along with an ensemble of P.J. Byrne, Marc Menchaca, Moses Ingram, Rebecca Dalton, Olli Haaskivi, Jordane Christie and Glynn Turman.
Janine Sherman Barrois is the showrunner for The Big Cigar, which comes from Warner Bros. Television, where Barrois and her company Folding Chair Productions have an umbrella deal. She is also an executive producer along with Bearman, Joshua Davis, Arthur Spector and Jim Hecht, the latter of whom wrote the series' first episode. Don Cheadle directed the first two episodes.
The Big Cigar premieres on Apple TV+ on Friday, May 17 with the first two episodes, followed by new episodes every Friday through June 14.
You can watch the trailer for The Big Cigar below.
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