Airdate: The Big Cigar

New US thriller series The Big Cigar screens on Apple TV+ in mid May.

Starring André Holland, and based on the monumental, eponymous magazine article of the same name by Joshuah Bearman (Argo), The Big Cigar is the incredible true story of Hollywood revolution meeting social revolution.

It’s a wild caper of Black Panther founder Huey Newton escaping from the FBI to Cuba with the assistance of famed producer Bert Schneider in an impossibly elaborate plan –involving a fake movie production- that goes wrong every way it possibly can. And somehow, it’s all true. Mostly.

Holland leads an ensemble cast including Alessandro Nivola, Tiffany Boone, PJ Byrne, Marc Menchaca, Moses Ingram, Rebecca Dalton, Olli Haaskivi, Jordane Christie, and Glynn Turman.

Legendary, award-winning actor, producer and director Don Cheadle serves as director and executive producer on the first two episodes. NAACP Image Award winner Janine Sherman Barrois (“Claws,” “The Kings of Napa”) serves as showrunner and Jim Hecht (“Winning Time”) penned the show’s first episode. The series hails from Warner Bros. Television, where Barrois and her Folding Chair Productions are under an overall deal. Barrois and Hecht are executive producing alongside Bearman, Joshua Davis and Arthur Spector (“Little America”) through their production company Epic.

First two episodes Friday, 17 May continues weekly on Apple TV+