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Fresh off a Best Picture win for Moonlight, up-and-coming actor Ashton Sanders is in negotiations to join Denzel Washington and Colin Farrell in Dan Gilroy’s legal thriller INNER CITY, the Tracking Board has exclusively learned.

Washington will play a lawyer who discovers that his firm hasn’t always acted in accordance with his personal values, leading to an existential crisis that forces him to take extreme action.

Sanders will play an impressionable recent law school graduate who helps Washington with pro bono cases.

Gilroy (Nightcrawler) is directing from his own screenplay. Sony will distribute the film, which is being co-financed by Cross Creek, Lone Star Capital and Charles King’s Macro. Jennifer Fox is producing with Todd Black of Escape Artists and Brian Oliver of Cross Creek.

Sanders played Chiron in the second act of Moonlight, which won Best Picture at the 89th Academy Awards on Sunday night. He previously appeared in Straight Outta Compton and is currently filming Rupert Wyatt’s sci-fi thriller Captive State with Vera Farmiga and John Goodman.

Sanders is represented by UTA, the Savage Agency, Garrett Lindsay at the ESI Network and attorney Fred Toczek.

Jeff Sneider | Editor in Chief