A Raisin in the Sun tells the story of three generations of a family living and struggling together under one roof. The Youngers—Mama Rashad, her children Beneatha Lathan and Walter Lee Combs, and his wife Ruth McDonald and their son Travis—live on Chicago's South Side in the 1950s. It is a place in which dreams, like the raisin in the Langston Hughes' poem from which the play takes its title, wither and die if nothing is done with them.
The drama was made into a lauded 1961 film with a script by Hansberry. It was previously produced for television in 1989.
Leon will direct the small-screen adaptation, which is set to feature a screenplay, based on Hansberry's original text, by Paris Qualles. The picture will be executive produced by Sony Pictures TV-based producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron aka Storyline Entertainment, Combs' Bad Boy World Wide Entertainment Group and Broadway producers Carl Rumbaugh, Susan Batson and David Binder. Filming is expected to begin in December in Toronto.