Samuel L. Jackson on board Peacock's Fight Night on Muhammed Ali

Samuel L. Jackson has joined the Peacock limited series Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist about Muhammad Ali. Jackson (Secret Invasion, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey) will play Frank Moten, a real-life underworld figure who was dubbed the Black Godfather by New York newspapers.



The project reunites Jackson (pictured) with Craig Brewer, who will direct the first two episodes of the series. The duo previously worked together on the 2006 film Black Snake Moan.

The series will tell the story of how on the night of Ali's defeat to Jerry Quarry, which came after he was banned from boxing for refusing to do the military draft, hundreds of guests at an after-party were robbed at the threat of a gun, which became one of the largest armed robberies the country has ever seen. Set in Atlanta, Fight Night focuses on the cop and the hustler at the center of it all.

Kevin Hart (True Story) will star and executive produce the series, which received a series order from Peacock in December. The series is based on the iHeartPodcast of the same name and comes from Shaye Ogbonna and Will Packer.

Executive producers Ogbonna and Jason Horwitch (Echo 3, The Calling) serve as showrunners for the series. They co-produce with Hart, Bryan Smiley and Mike Stein for Kevin Hart's Hartbeat, Packer and Sabrina Wind for Will Packer Media, Conal Byrne, Will Pearson and Carrie Lieberman for iHeartPodcasts, Jeff Keating and Lars Jacobson. The project comes from Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group.

Jackson played the MCU character Nick Fury in The Marvels last year. In 2024, he will star opposite Pierce Brosnan in the historical epic The Unholy Trinity, Netflix's The Piano Lesson with Corey Hawkins and John David Washington, Columbia Pictures' The Garfield Movie and the Apple original film Argylle.

For more than four decades, Jackson has been a Hollywood fixture entertaining audiences in a variety of film and television projects. He is best known for his work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Nick Fury, Mace Windu in the Star Wars franchise and his collaborations with Quentin Tarantino, most notably his portrayal of Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction.