Muhammad Ali Film Casts Nicholas Pinnock, Christopher Eccleston

Nicholas Pinnock (“For Life”) will play heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali in “A God Amongst Men.”

The film, co-written and directed by James Newton (“2:Hrs”), also stars Christopher Eccleston (“Dodger”) and is based on the true story of Ali’s visit to Tyneside, United Kingdom, in 1977 was co-written by Ian Skelton (“Hey Duggee”).

Newton said: “‘A God Amongst Men’ is based on the true story of how one man, Johnny Walker, brazenly claimed he would bring Muhammad Ali to Tyneside in 1977 to save a boxing club from closure. Johnny was immediately mocked and he became a laughing stock. But Johnny didn’t give up on his dream. He found the people who help make the impossible possible.”

The film is being produced by Adam Rolston and David Braithwaite for Studio Pictures (“A Street Cat Named Bob”) with Bob Clarke (“Boiling Point”) and Picnik Entertainment’s Nicola Pearcey (“A Girl Can Touch the Sky”) serving as executives producers act .

Pre-production begins in August and filming will wrap up by the end of the year.

To engage their audience early, Studio Pictures is releasing an exclusive NFT Art Drop in late July. In collaboration with a leading British comics artist, 11 hand-drawn cartoon characters are being created based on real working class children from the film The Skidz – an acronym for the Shields Park Kids boxing club. Each minted NFT has a unique physical benefit associated with the film’s production – the opportunity to visit the set, receive limited-edition merchandise, or participate in the cast and crew’s screening.

“The potential for NFTs to completely change the film marketing landscape is there. It’s here now. Filmmakers need to be aware of the seismic shift that has occurred with NFT assets over the past year. NFTs are game-changing for indie filmmakers. We can now build a community and an audience for our film before we’ve shot a single frame, and that same audience will be part of our journey from day one,” said Newton.

Samahoma Media Advisors has secured funding for the creation of the NFT Collection through the Insight Media Fund in their first NFT initiative.

Samahoma CEO Bob Clarke added, “Properly planned and executed, with strong creativity leveraging their potential for connectivity, NFTs offer multiple ways to explore the relationship between super-fan audiences and the music, movies, new literature and others arts and entertainment they love. James Newton understood that and so we were happy to secure the funding he needed to create the collection.”

Samahoma has identified three other music and literature IPs with similar potential for later support later in the year.