Adult Swim yesterday ordered a new, half-hour series from The Boondocks creator Aaron McGruder titled Black Jesus.According to The Hollywood Reporter, the live-action scripted comedy finds Jesus living in present-day Compton, on a daily mission to spread love and kindness throughout the neighborhood with the help of his small but loyal group of downtrodden followers. Newcomer Gerald “Slink” Johnson (Grand Theft Auto V) stars as Black Jesus. Charlie Murphy(Are We There Yet?), Corey Holcomb (The Cleveland Show), Kali Hawk (Couples Retreat) and The Boondocks‘ John Witherspoon round out the cast.McGruder and frequent series director Andrea Romano keep promising more animated Boondocks, but it hasn’t yet made its way to Adult Swim. Whether this is a step in the direction of getting more, or whether this will take more time away from potential new episodes of The Boondocks, isn’t clear. The most recent claim, made in January, was that new episodes would air beginning in April.In January of last year, McGruder tried unsuccessfully to fund a feature film based on the outrageously racist Boondocks supporting character Uncle Ruckus.The producers tried to fund the film via Kickstarter.”There’s always been interest in a live-action Boondocks movie, which to me was out of the question considering Huey and Riley are essentially impossible to cast,” the site said. “The animated feature would cost around $20 million, but a live action Uncle Ruckus movie could cost a fraction of that. So just for the hell of it we had the costume made and it was pretty amazing. To see Gary actually transform into Uncle Ruckus… it’s quite the surreal experience. I never expected the transition to be so completely seamless.”Black Jesus will premiere this year. A specific date and episode count have not yet been determined.
