A Journal For Jordan - What We Know So Far

Following up his Oscar-winning movie "Fences" from 2016, Denzel Washington is returning to the director chair with a new feature called " A Journal for Jordan." The drama film is based on the memoir "A Journal for Jordan: A Story of Love and Honor," written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dana Canedy about her personal love story with First Sergeant Charles Monroe King. At the time of writing her memoir, Canedy was a senior editor at The New York Times with a newborn baby, while King was overseas in Iraq. 

The story has been adapted as a screenplay by John Burnham Schwartz and Oscar-nominated writer Virgil Williams, who co-wrote "Mudbound" with Dee Rees. Washington has directed two other films, 2002's "Antwone Fisher" and "The Great Debaters" in 2007, taking a long break before returning to behind the camera with the episode "The Sound of Silence" for "Grey's Anatomy" in 2016. After "Fences," he took another break for a few years, indicating a trend in which Washington appears to wait for the right project to spark his interest before deciding to direct again. Luckily, fans of Washington will finally see the filmmaker return to the role of director for the upcoming emotionally-charged drama.

Here's everything we know so far about the new film "A Journal for Jordan." 

While "A Journal for Jordan" was first announced back in 2019, it's clearly taken a long time for the film to even make it to production, with consistent delays due to the pandemic. But thankfully, the Sony Pictures movie now has an official release date, with "A Journal for Jordan" coming out in NYC and LA on December 10, 2021, with a wide release to shortly follow on December 22, 2021, the Wednesday before Christmas Eve (via Deadline). 

With such a highly desirable release date, "A Journal for Jordan" will be facing off against other major movies like "The Matrix 4," "The King's Man," and "Sing 2," all of which come out the same day as Washington's movie in late December. Some sources like Movie Insider report that "A Journal for Jordan" will be released nationwide on December 25, 2021, but December 22, 2021 seems to be the more trustworthy date as reported by publications like The Wrap and Deadline. 

While Washington has starred in films he's directed in the past, he will not be acting in "A Journal for Jordan." Instead, Michael B. Jordan, who many know from "Black Panther" and "Creed," will be playing the lead role of King, while Chanté Adams, a rising star who has acted in movies "Roxanne Roxanne" and "Bad Hair," plays Canedy. The IMDb page lists an extensive cast, with some given character names while others are still left blank. 

Both Robert Wisdom and Tamara Tunie are likely playing important roles that have not yet been named, while Johnny M. Wu plays a character named Manny, and young actor Jalon Christian plays Jordan, a role that is likely an older version of Canedy and King's son, who is a baby when King is overseas. Other notable roles in "A Journal for Jordan" are Susan Pourfar as Miriam, Vanessa Aspillaga as Robin, Cleveland Berto as Mohammed, and Joey Brooks as Aaron Sandberg. 

Based on the real love story of King and Canedy, "A Journal for Jordan" is the tale of Canedy's life with King, comprising of their time together before his death in Baghdad, Iraq on October 14, 2016, and the gut-wrenching reality she had to face after losing him, raising their son Jordan on her own. King "left behind a 200-page journal containing thoughts, remembrances and pieces of advice meant to guide his son through life in the event that King 'did not make it home' from Iraq," as The New York Times explains in an article about the memoir. Canedy took these writings from King and merged them with her own memories and thoughts, creating a beautiful story of love and loss meant to be passed on to their son in the future. 

While working on the memoir, Canedy also looked further into King's death, when an explosive device detonated under his car, by interviewing those who witnessed the event, discovering both "the intense loyalty and admiration King's fellow soldiers felt for him, as well as the suffering inflicted on Iraqis." The film adaptation of their story is expected to show both Canedy and King's lives before the soldier's death, and with an older Jordan cast, we will also likely see the years following the loss and creation of the memoir. The real Canedy has gone on to continue her monumental career, becoming one of the administrators of the Pulitzer Prizes from 2017 to 2020, before being named senior vice president and publisher of Simon and Schuster in July 2020, now the first "Black person to head a major publishing imprint," as reported by NPR.