The Big Cigar
is an upcoming historical limited drama series that will premiere on Apple TV+. It is based on Joshuah Bearman’s 2012 Playboy magazine article of the same name and follows Black Panther Party founder Huey P. Newton’s unbelievable escape plan to Cuba, which involves staging a fake movie production.The series stars André Holland as Huey P. Newton, Alessandro Nivola as famed producer Bert Schneider, Tiffany Boone as Newton’s wife Kathleen Cleaver, P. J. Byrne as FBI agent John Huggins, Marc Menchaca as FBI agent Tom Poulin, Moses Ingram as Assata Shakur, Rebecca Dalton as author Alice Walker, Olli Haaskivi as Finnish director Jörn Donner, Jordane Christie as Black Panther Party member Eldridge Cleaver, and Glynn Turman as Black Panther Party member Bobby Seale.
The creative team includes Marvel vet Don Cheadle, who is also directing and executive producing the first two episodes. It is a production by Warner Bros. Television.
The Big Cigar is a wild caper of Black Panther founder 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.
