TriStar Pictures have acquired the worldwide rights to The Woman King, a drama which will be inspired by the true events of the Dahomey Amazons in the 18th and 19th century, and they’ve tapped Lupita Nyong’o and Viola Davis to star.
Based upon an original story by Maria Bello (Prisoners), the film will follow Nanisca (Davis), the general of an all-female military unit known as the Amazons, and her daughter Nawi (Nyong’o), who together fought the French and neighbouring tribes who violated their honour, enslaved their people, and threatened to destroy everything they’ve lived for.
Hannah Minghella, president of TriStar Pictures said in a statement: “The Woman King is the powerful true story of an extraordinary mother-daughter relationship, and there’s no-one more extraordinary than Viola Davis and Lupita Nyong’o to bring them to life”, while co-producer Julius Tennon of JuVee Productions added that the film “has the potential to be a game changer for women of colour everywhere”.
Another producer, Welle Entertainment’s Cathy Schulman, told Deadline: “Black Panther just showed us how the power of imagination and lore could reveal a world without gender and racial stereotypes. The Woman King will tell one of history’s greatest forgotten stories from the real world in which we live, where an army of African warrior women staved off slavery, colonialism and inter-tribal warfare to unify a nation”.
Any time Nyong’o and Davis are cast in films separately it’s great news; together in the same film is a cause for celebration. Hopefully The Woman King can be everything it promises. It will be interesting to see who they get to direct the film.
#Peace.Love.TheWomanKing
