Nate Parker, the film-maker whose award-winning directorial debut The Birth of a Nation was engulfed in controversy after it emerged Parker had been acquitted of rape charges, is to return with a new film about an LAPD detective.
However, it subsequently emerged that Parker and co-writer Jean McGianni Celestin had been charged with rape in 1999 while students at Penn State university.
Parker was acquitted in 2001, while Celestin was convicted of sexual assault; the latter’s conviction was overturned on appeal in 2005.
The Birth of a Nation ended up incurring a major loss for Fox, who had bought its distribution rights for $7.5m shortly after the film’s Sundance premiere.