The Big Cigar

The Big Cigar, a new six-episode limited series executive produced and written by Jim Hecht ("Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty"), and executive produced and showrun by NAACP Image Award winner Janine Sherman Barrois ("Claws," "The Kings of Napa"), with Don Cheadle ("No Sudden Move," "Black Monday," "House of Lies") on board to direct and executive produce the first two episodes, based on the eponymous Playboy magazine article from Joshuah Bearman ("Argo"), who will also serve as executive producer. With Andre Holland ("The Eddy," "Moonlight") in discussions to star as Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton, The Big Cigar tells the extraordinary, hilarious, almost-too-good-to-be-true story of how Newton relied on his best friend, Bert Schneider, the Hollywood producer behind "Easy Rider," to elude a nationwide manhunt and escape to Cuba while being pursued into exile by the FBI.
 
Written by Hecht, from a story by Bearman & Hecht, The Big Cigar hails from Warner Bros. Television, where Sherman Barrois and her Folding Chair Productions are under an overall deal. The drama is executive produced by Hecht and Sherman Barrois, as well as Bearman, Joshua Davis, and Arthur Spector ("Little America"), through their production company Epic, a division of Vox Media Studios.