Judas And The Black Messiah has prompted the reintroduction of a bill to remove J. Edgar Hoover's name from the FBI building.

Following the film's release three weeks ago, Rep. Steve Cohen said Hoover "doesn't deserve the honour and recognition." The Chaka King-led film details the story of Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), the chairman of the Black Panther Party's Illinois chapter, and car thief turned informer William O'Neill (Lakeith Stanfield).

Hoover (played by Martin Sheen) was the first director of the FBI and later became a controversial figure due to his own abuses of power. Hoover ordered the assassination of Fred Hampton.

The FBI headquarters was named after Hoover following his death in 1972, approximately three years after the events of Judas And The Black Messiah.

Democratic US lawmakers have reintroduced the bill to strip Hoover's name from the J. Edgar Hoover building in Washington, D.C. Rep. Steve Cohen said: "the movie is a clear depiction of his efforts to impede the civil rights movement.”

It has been reported by Deadline that Cohen had no contact with anyone involved in making the film before he reintroduced the bill, which currently has around 12 co-sponsors.

Cohen's reasons for reintroducing the bill are that Hoover “doesn’t deserve the honour and recognition of having the nation’s premiere law enforcement agency headquarters named for him.

“The civil rights we enjoy today are in spite of J. Edgar Hoover, not because of him,” he added.

Cohen also said some Republicans have claimed that the bill is an example of “cancel culture”, but he explained Hoover’s actions should be “looked upon from a different perspective” in the wake of the United States' renewed efforts to achieve racial equality in recent months.

The bill was first introduced in 2015 after Cohen watched Uniquely Nasty: The Government’s War on Gays, a Yahoo! documentary which delves into Hoover’s efforts to remove homosexuals from the government in the ’50s. This is not the first time a film has inspired legislation, either. In 2014, then-Sen. Claire McCaskill pushed for the Irish government to pass legislation to open adoption records, after the movie Philomena, centred around Ireland's mother and baby home scandal, was released. She also appeared at a press conference with Philomena Lee.