Tobey Maguire signs on for Universal’s ‘The Crusaders’

Tobey Maguire has signed on to star in new Universal pic ‘The Crusaders’. 

Gary Ross will be directing the drama about the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case.

Maguire is lined up to play Jack Greenberg, an idealistic lawyer fresh out of law school who joined with NAACP Legal Defense Fund head and future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall to win a Supreme Court case that ruled segregation in American schools illegal.

Danny Strong is penning the script for the movie, reports Variety.

On board as producer is Bob Cooper with Ross and Maguire exec producing through Ross’s U-based Larger Than Life Prods.  

The project is based on Greenberg’s memoirs ‘Crusaders in the Courts’.

It was originally developed by Cooper at New Line but was let go after the studio was absorbed by Warner Bros. (ANI)