Forest Whitaker Gives TV an American Gangster

• Nov 5, 2007 04:22 PM ET
• by Matt Mitovich

Forest Whitaker and Marc Levin are executive-producing for Showtime Mr. Untouchable, a drama series that will tell the true-crime story of Harlem heroin lord Leroy "Nicky" Barnes (played by Cuba Gooding Jr. in the current box-office hit American Gangster). Whitaker's project has no connection to Ridley Scott's feature, Variety notes, but instead is based on Levin's just-released documentary of the same name. The series will chronicle how Barnes built a wildly successful drug empire in the 1970s, albeit at some expense to his Harlem neighborhood.