O.J. Simpson and his 20-year-old murder case continues to be in high demand.
Fresh off the success of FX’s critically acclaimed American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson, The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that Martin Sheen will executive produce a docuseries titled Hard Evidence: O.J. is Innocent, which is set to air on Investigation Discovery in the first quarter of 2017.
According to THR, the show, narrated by Sheen, will reveal “critical new evidence” and will be largely based on the findings of Texas private investigator William C. Dear, author of the book of O.J. Is Innocent and I Can Prove It.
The series will attempt to explain Simpson’s innocence for the 1994 murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman and make a guess to what actually happened in the famous double homicide which led to Simpson’s not guilty verdict.
ID outbid other networks, including Amazon, for the rights to the series. Group President Henry Schleiff said the new evidence is convincing and made him accept OJ is innocent.
“Like most others I had always believed that the evidence showed that [O.J.] did it,” Schleiff says, “I went into this with a tremendous amount of doubt and cynicism, but this is so amazingly convincing that when you do connect the dots and look at the new evidence, it made me accept the fact that O.J. is innocent.”
Investigation Discovery isn’t the only network getting in the O.J. Simpson trial game, as the Esquire Network is set to air a 12-part series in April. ESPN is also set to air a five-part 30 for 30 on ABC on the trial in June. The case is extremely polarizing so it’s easy to understand why networks are jumping on the story from all different angles — especially when the story has never been hotter. Who knew Simpson’s murder trial would be so relevant in 2016?
About Liam McGuire
Social +Staff writer for The Comeback & Awful Announcing. Liammcguirejournalism@gmail.com