EXCLUSIVE: Dave Franco and Ed Skrein have come aboard If Beale Street Could Talk, Barry Jenkins’ follow-up to his Best Picture Oscar winner Moonlight. Based on James Baldwin’s novel, the drama follows Tish, a newly engaged Harlem woman who races against the clock to prove her lover’s innocence while carrying their first child to term.

Jenkins tapped newcomer KiKi Layne to star in the film, along with Stephan James, Colman Domingo, Brian Tyree Henry and Regina King. Jenkins, who wrote the screen adaptation, also is producing via his Pastel label along with Annapurna Pictures and Plan B.

Franco, who most recently had a voice role in Warner Bros’ The Lego Ninjago Movie, next will be seen in A24’s The Disaster Artist, co-starring alongside his brother James Franco, and Marja-Lewis Ryan’s Netflix film 6 Balloons, opposite Abbi Jacobson. He’s repped by WME and Anonymous Content.

Skrein, who played Ajax in the blockbuster film Deadpool, appears in James Cameron’s Alita: Battle Angel, directed by Robert Rodriguez, which is slated for release in summer 2018. He’s repped by CAA and 42 agency in the UK.