Disgraced NFL athlete, actor, and celebrityO.J. Simpsonpassedaway on April 11, and in the two weeks since then, people have hardly eulogized the man rhapsodically. Most people agree that Simpson seemed guilty of murdering his wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, despite being acquitted 30 years ago. Simpson has even morbidly teased his guilt, whether it’s in footage where he pretends to stab someone to death or it’s his bookIf I Did It, where the word ‘if’ is practically hidden in the title formatting.However, there’s one upcoming film that, like Alan Dershowitz, imagines Simpson as possibly innocent.
That would beThe Juice(previously titledNicole & O.J.), a strange project from a suitably eccentric filmmaker named Joshua Newton. Playing Simpson inThe Juiceis Boris Kodjoe, famous forBrown Sugar, Madea’s Family Reunion, theResident Evilfilms (playing Luther West), and shows likeSoul Food, Station 19, andThe Last Man on Earth. But the main character of the film is supposedly Douglas McCann, an attorney who represented O.J. Simpson in a civil case from 2000 and went downa conspiratorial rabbit hole believing that Simpson was innocentof the 1994 murders. Newton was passionate about casting one particular person for the role —Owen Wilson.
“Owen Wilson was perfect for the role,” Newton told the Hollywood Reporter. “I actually had a meeting with him in Santa Monica. Everybody loved the script.His agent wanted him to do it. We offered him $12 million. But at the end of the lunch, Owen stood up and said, ‘If you think I’m going to take the lead role in a movie about how O.J. didn’t do it,you’ve got to be kidding me.’"
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Newton, who has been trying to getThe Juicemade for over a decade, now believes he’s found the right person for the part, but hasn’t shared any casting details. Currently,the film has a webpagethat invites people to submit information and answer an interesting question: What would justice look like? Here’s what the webpage asks in a Google doc:
In the upcoming satirical thriller ‘The Juice,’ we explore various exaggerated ends for a notorious figure. What should justice have looked like? Let us know your most outrageous ideas, and they might just inspire what you see on screen in 2025!
The Juice Hasn’t Been Joshua Newton’s Only Difficult Production
BeforeThe Juice(you can watch a teaser above), Newton actually directedRoy Scheider’s final film,Beautiful Blue Eyes, which was based on Newton’s father. Scheider (Jaws, All That Jazz) plays Joseph, a retired New York City cop who visits his estranged son in Germany and discovers that his son’s neighbor is the Nazi officer who killed his family in Poland during the Holocaust. Joseph then enlists his son in a kidnapping attempt to make the former Nazi officer pay for his crimes. Unfortunately, the film had both technical and legal problems. As MovieWeb explained:
“Scheider finished filming his scenes forBeautiful Blue Eyes, however, technical issues had caused many scenes to need to be redone, and the actor had passed away before he could reshoot any scenes. As a result, the production had to wait until the technology was able to produce a workable facsimile of Scheider to complete the production.”
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Additionally, there were legal issues that affectedBeautiful Blue Eyes. A company behind the film ended up suing Variety for allegedly reneging on their six-figure contract to promote the film. Newton and others also sued Facebook for blocking the film from being promoted due to terms of service policies. On top of all that,the film was dragged into a messy and complicated “legal maze”(according toThe Hollywood Reporter) between star Charlotte Kirk (who portrays Nicole Brown inThe Juice) and different powerful producers involved in a dark sexual scheme.
Beautiful Blue Eyeswas finally released to the masses in 2022, 13 years after it had originally finished its production. Hopefully, Newton’s new film doesn’t take nearly as long.
