Peacock‘s limited series Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist continues to add to its A-list cast.
Don Cheadle is the latest actor to sign on to the drama, which tracks an armed robbery (and its fallout) on the night of Muhammad Ali’s 1970 comeback fight in Atlanta. Cheadle joins a cast that also includes Kevin Hart (who’s also executive producing), Samuel L. Jackson, Taraji P. Henson, Terrence Howard, Dexter Darden (who’s playing Ali), and Myles Bullock.
Fight Night is based on an iHeart podcast and will follow “the heavyweight fight and criminal underground heist that introduced the world to the city dubbed ‘the Black Mecca,’ and the cop and the hustler at the center of it all,” according to the show’s logline. Oscar and Emmy nominee Cheadle will play the aforementioned cop, JD Hudson, one of the first Black detectives on Atlanta’s police force who is assigned to Ali’s security detail and to work the robbery case.
Fight Night comes from Universal Television, Will Packer Media and Doghouse Pictures, which produced the podcast. Shaye Ogbonna (The Chi) created the TV series and will serve as co-showrunner with Jason Horwitch (Peacock’s The Calling). They executive produce with Hart and his Hartbeat Productions partners Bryan Smiley and Mike Stein; Packer and Sabrina Wind of Will Packer Media; Conal Byrne and Carrie Lieberman of iHeartPodcasts; Jeff Keating of Doghouse Pictures; Lars Jacobson; and Craig Brewer (Dolemite Is My Name, Hustle & Flow), who’s also directing four episodes. Tiffany Brown of Hartbeat, Kenny Burns and Erika Johnson are co-EPs.
Cheadle’s recent credits include Marvel’s Secret Invasion, where he reprised his long-running character James “Rhodey” Rhodes, feature film White Noise and Showtime’s Black Monday, for which he earned a pair of Emmy nominations. He is repped by UTA and Viewpoint.
