The "Creed" actor will start shooting early next year for the film, which will be directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, reported Variety.
Cretton and Andrew Lanham penned the script, adapting it from a memoir by the same name from Bryan Stevenson.
The film follows Stevenson, a young lawyer's defense of the most vulnerable in the country and his fight for equal justice.
The project has been picked up by Warner Bros. from Broad Green Pictures.