I don’t care if many of his movies are terrible: Samuel L. Jackson equals instant (if, admittedly, often mild) interest. But when you throw a respected, credible name such as Langston Hughes into the mix, I think we’ve got something cooking.

According to Variety, the perpetually-working thespian will team with Angela Bassett — with whom he co-starred in the Broadway production The Mountain — and Jennifer Hudson on Black Nativity, an adaptation of the aforementioned author’s gospel-infused musical; Kasi Lemmons (Talk to Me, the Jackson-led Eve’s Bayou) has written and will direct the film.

Nativity centers on a young boy whose mother ships him off to Harlem for the Christmas season, spending the holiday with his grandparents, Rev. Clarence (Jackson) and Aretha Cobbs (Bassett). His lack of experience with them notwithstanding, the grandfather’s speech and “a stylized, dream-sequence retelling of the classic Nativity story” – Jackson is being eyed to play several people during this scene — comes to teach him “about the importance of faith and family.” Hudson has entered talks for the role of the boy’s mother and, thus, son of the grandparents; her estranged relationship with the Reverend creates much of the central drama.

Once the central actor has been found — and, needless to say, after Jackson finishes filming Django Unchained — we should see Black Nativity go into production.

Thanks to the cast, helmer, or source material, do you see promise in Black Nativity?