Viola Davis is co-producing “Wild Seed”, a drama for Amazon Prime Video, based on the first book in Octavia E. Butler’s award-winning “Patternist” sci-fi series.
Filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu, whose acclaimed film “Rafiki” was the first Kenyan film to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival, will co-write and direct.
Her writing partner: Sci-fi novelist Nnedi Okorafor, whose works include “Binti,” the winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novella. Her book “Who Fears” is in development at HBO with George R. R. Martin and Michael Lombardo.
“Wild Seed” follows two African immortals — Doro the killer and Anyanwu, the healer — from pre-Colonial West Africa to the distant future.
“Wild Seed is a book that shifted my life,” said Davis. “It is as epic, as game-changing, as moving and brilliant as any science fiction novel ever written. [producing partner Julius Tennon] and I are proud to have this masterpiece in our hands. It fullfills our promise and legacy to be disrupters. Octavia Butler was a visionary and we look forward to honoring the scope of her work and sharing it with the world.”
Kahiu and Okafor promised, “You’re going to see shape-shifting, body jumping, telepaths, people born with the ability to defy the laws of physics, all in the context of our past, present and future world.”
Ava DuVernay is currently developing another Butler novel, “Dawn” for television.
Academy Award winner Viola Davis has another big project in the pipeline.
The acclaimed actress is set to star in the biopic “The Fighting Shirley Chisholm,” Deadline reports. She’ll play the barrier-breaking titular character, who made history as the first black woman to win a seat in the U.S. Congress in 1968. In addition to her acting duties, Davis is one of the producers.
Plot details haven’t been revealed, so it’s unclear what portion of Chisholm’s life the film will cover. There are a lot of high points that could potentially be included. Not only did Chisholm make history by being elected to Congress, she was the first black woman to seek the nomination of either major political party for president. She did the latter in 1972.
Davis is a trailblazer herself. After winning her Academy Award for “Fences” in 2017, she became the first black actor to win an Oscar, Emmy, and Tony, as Variety reported at the time. She is also currently tied with Octavia Spencer for the most Oscar nods received by a black actress; they’ve each earned three.
“The Fighting Shirley Chisholm” is written by Adam Countee, and Maggie Betts is set to direct. So far, Amazon Studios has not announced the film’s release date.
In terms of the winter movie cycle, Thanksgiving is a great time to get caught up.
You have a couple of days off, are probably stuffed with, er, stuffing, and want to be prepared for the Christmas movie onslaught that is just around the corner, when both Mary PoppinsandSpider-Man will be vying for your attention (amongst many, many others). So we’ve prepared a handy viewing guide for the Thanksgiving break, for when you want to escape to the theater with your loved ones, or leave them behind while they digest their turkey and watch whatever football game is on. And don’t worry, if you want to watch Netflix instead, we’ve got that covered, too.
‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald‘
Warner Bros/Wizarding World
Remember “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” 2016’s ambitious but somewhat confusing fantasy romp that was supposed to serve as an extension of the lucrative Warner Bros. franchise but instead was kind of just huh? Well, they made another one! And this one is much better.
With Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne, again) dispatched to Paris to track down the powerful Credence (Ezra Miller) and foil the plot of villainous wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp), the movie adds some international intrigue, a more admissibly knotty plot and, thanks to an appearance by sexy young Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law), some concrete connections between the various strands of this franchise. Just be warned — before you pile the family into the station wagon, it might be a good idea to re-watch the first movie. Consider that your magic spell for understanding “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.”
‘Widows‘
Fox
Given the pedigree, it’s very clear that “Widows” isn’t your run-of-the-mill thriller. Based on a British prime time series from 1983, it concerns a group of women (among them: Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki and Cynthia Erivo) who are forced into a sticky situation when their criminal husbands are killed in a heist-gone-wrong.
Directed by Academy Award-winner Steve McQueen and co-written by Gillian Flynn (who wrote “Gone Girl” and “Sharp Objects”), this is a movie that thrills on both an intellectual and visceral level. “Ocean’s 8” it is not.
‘The Favourite‘
Fox
This is the time of year when the studios unleash their stuffy period movies and, yes, there are even a few of those this year. But “The Favourite” is not one of them.
Rambunctious, sexy, and unpredictable, it’s the antithesis of every boring costume drama that they throw Oscars at with willful abandon. This is electrically alive in a way few films, period or otherwise, ever are, anchored by a trio of brilliant female performers (Olivia Colman, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz) and some of the finest direction this year (courtesy of Greek genius Yorgos Lanthimos). Set during the reign of Queen Anne (Colman) in the early part of the 18th century, it features palace intrigue, love triangles, and people getting pushed into muddy ditches. What more do you want?
‘Ralph Breaks the Internet‘
Disney
In the sequel to the hit 2012 animated film, Ralph (John C. Reilly) and Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) head to the Internet, where they fall in with online auctions, meme-creation, and a particularly violent “Grand Theft Auto”-style game called “Slaughter Race” that is lorded over by a bad-ass, leather-clad ringleader named Shank (Gal Gadot). Also, the Disney Princesses show up. As you can imagine, it’s a lot of fun.
“Ralph Breaks the Internet” is one of those rare family sequels that won’t leave you with a toothache from it being so sweet, there’s actual pathos and emotionality but nothing feels syrupy or forced and it’s honestly one of the most visually ravishing animated features you’re ever likely to see.
‘Green Book‘
Universal
Up until this point, Peter Farrelly has directed as one-half of the Farrelly Brothers — serving as the tag-team provocateurs behind gross-out extravaganzas like “Dumb and Dumber,” “There’s Something About Mary,” and the underrated classic “Kingpin.” So it’s interesting to see Farrelly emerge as something of an Oscar frontrunner for his work directing “Green Book,” a based-on-a-true-story racial drama starring Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen.
In the film. Ali plays Don Shirley, a classical pianist, who hires New York tough guy Tony Vallelonga (Mortensen) to escort him on a tour of the South. This could be the feel-good movie of the fall, which makes it a perfect after-Thanksgiving family outing.
‘Creed II‘
MGM
Finally. The follow-up to 2015’s brilliant “Rocky” refresh “Creed” is now upon us. Let us give thanks.
In “Creed II,” Michael B. Jordan returns as Adonis Creed, the son of Apollo Creed, who this time turns to going toe-to-doe with Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu), the son of Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), who famously killed Apollo in the ring (in 1985’s Cold War classic “Rocky IV“). Oh, and Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) is still around! So there’s that. Hopefully the sequel builds on the intensity and excitement of the first film, while supplying some new wrinkles as well. We can already feel ourselves getting inspired.
‘Roma‘
Netflix
Yes, “Roma” is a Netflix movie. But in a rare move, the streaming service is debuting the movie in theaters first, before it hits the platform in mid-December. And, really, you should do everything in your power to see it on the big screen. In fact, try and see it on the biggest screen possible. Because this movie is absolutely jaw dropping.
An epic on a miniature scale, the highly autobiographical film from “Gravity” filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron follows a middle-class family in Mexico City in the early 1970s dealing with heartache, political upheaval, and the day-to-day domestic drama that every family deals with. What makes this story even more captivating is that it’s told through the eyes of the family’s housekeeper Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio, giving one of the year’s best performances even though she’s not a professional actor). You have to see this with an audience in a theater. It just won’t be the same on your iPad.
‘Overlord‘
Paramount
If your family is really annoying you over Thanksgiving, it might be time to watch a little more muscular movie at the multiplex. Perhaps something like “Overlord,” a high-concept World War II romp that features thrills, chills, and the cathartic experience of watching sweaty hunks brutally murder Nazis.
Conceived by mystery box magnate J.J. Abrams, “Overlord” is a hard-core horror movie mixed with an equally hardcore war movie, wherein a group of Allied soldiers (among them Jovan Adepo and Wyatt Russell) parachute into France to take down a radio tower on the eve of D-Day and wind up finding a gnarly zombie conspiracy. You know, that old story. But there are some definite grindhouse pleasures to be had as Nazis get shot, blown-up, and lit on fire and then come back from the dead to do it all again.
Heist movies are often compelling because of their mechanics — the thrill (and spectacle) of watching crooks dismantle a system, outsmart the law and escape with their lives, and bounty, intact. Steve McQueen’s “Widows” offers a lot of superficial window dressing to make his heist unique — the fact that the would-be perpetrators are the wives of “real” thieves — but what’s compelling, even riveting, about his film is not how they are pulling it off, but why.
Bolstered by an impressive ensemble including Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Daniel Kaluuya, and Liam Neeson, “Widows” brings to irresistible life the determination, and desperation, of four women struggling to control their own fate within a system built upon, and preoccupied by, its own greed, corruption, and indifference.
Davis (“Fences”) plays Veronica Rawlins, a Chicago teacher’s union delegate whose life is thrown into disarray after her husband, Harry (Neeson), dies during a botched robbery — one he staged with his colleagues Carlos (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), Florek (Jon Bernthal), and Coburn (Jimmy Goss). Before she can begin to grieve, local crime boss Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry) contacts her, demanding the money that Harry took, which he hopes will cushion his campaign for South Side alderman against incumbent Jack Mulligan (Farrell). But after retrieving Harry’s notebook, which contains the plans for his failed robbery, Veronica reaches out to the wives of his former partners — Linda (Rodriguez), Alice (Debicki), and Amanda (Carrie Coon) — enlisting them to complete the job and pay off Jamal.
Twentieth Century Fox.
Though initially reluctant to participate, Linda and Alice quickly discover an aptitude for the kind of reconnaissance and deception needed to mount a robbery, while Veronica canvasses Mulligan, a friend of Harry’s, for help. But even as everything finally seems to come together— hiring Belle, a resourceful babysitter, as driver after Veronica’s trusted chauffeur, Bash (Garret Dillahunt), suffers an attack at the hands of Jamal’s cold-blooded brother Jatemme (Kaluuya) — the details of the heist, and the motives of the players involved, force them to confront new and uncomfortable elements of their individual pasts. They do so even as time rapidly approaches to launch a desperate plan intended to protect their collective futures.
Adapted with Gillian Flynn (“Gone Girl”) from a British miniseries of the same name, McQueen condenses what was originally six hours of BBC television into a very dense 129 minutes, though you’re unlikely to feel that there’s anything missing. They not only conjure extraordinarily vivid portraits of all of the characters involved — women and men, bad and good — but provide a rich and detailed world that gave birth to or shaped their identities. Set in Chicago against the backdrop of one of its poverty-stricken boroughs, there’s automatically a divide between the haves and have-nots, but McQueen turns that dialectic into a pathology, and a commentary on the dynamic that continues to metastasize in contemporary American society.
Veronica lives comfortably in an apartment provided by Harry’s extracurricular exploits. But, after his death, she is left with nothing; none of it is in her name, and she is immediately reminded of her powerlessness by Jamal, who dreams of finding a legitimate role in his community but backslides into the criminality that made it financially possible for him to aspire to something greater. The always beautiful and obedient Linda was raised in an atmosphere of domestic violence, but soon discovers that there’s power in people underestimating her. And Belle, literally running from one job to the next, stumbles across the moneymaking opportunity of a lifetime — the one for which she’s inadvertently been preparing her whole adult life.
Davis brings polished, flinty resolve to Veronica’s plight, concealing her grief behind immaculate presentation of her clothes and lifestyle to the world, not to mention a fluffy little dog that accompanies her everywhere. McQueen lets her be sexy, vulnerable, tough and unlikeable, often simultaneously, and you can feel Davis’ already-sophisticated faculties as an actress flexing with a freedom she hasn’t experienced before.
20th Century Fox
Debicki seems to deliver one “star-making” performance after another, but here she transforms in a really profound way that isn’t merely a byproduct of playing a women who chooses not to be a victim. She literally towers over her co-stars (she’s 6’3”), but she carries a feverish, improvisational energy and commands the screen with utter believability. Erivo is another standout as Belle, tougher and more fearless than any of the women to whom she’s meant to prove herself.
But Kaluuya creates a singular sort of menace felt even when he’s not on screen as Jatemme, a person indoctrinated to not feel and not care about anything except his own needs and goals — and his brother’s. He is willing to stop at nothing, and do anything, to accomplish them.
McQueen’s movies have long since explored the deeper roots of what makes us work — and not work — as a society, which may be why the film’s central robbery feels like sleight of hand. By the time it goes down, we care more about the characters at the center of this story and how they will survive than whether the machinery of their plans comes easily together. Working with longtime cinematographer Sean Bobbitt, McQueen delivers the visceral thrills of criminality, but always injects them with the greater cultural and emotional dimensions of people in a world where it feels necessary, or justified.
Ultimately, McQueen’s latest certainly joins the ranks of films like “Heat” and “The Usual Suspects” in terms of its intelligence, intensity and complexity, but its goals are different than most heist movies, as is its success. As the best entries in the subgenre tend to build to some sort of climactic showdown and a quick getaway, “Widows” lingers in the messy, relatable humanity of the perpetrators, it cares why they are committing their crimes, and it examines what it means — not just financially, but emotionally — if they succeed.
You thought it was the back-to-school season, but according to ABC, it is murder — not class — that is back in session.
The network released the “How to Get Away with Murder” Season 5 trailer on Thursday, and, of course, there’s another mystery in store for us this season. The first half of the preview starts out on a positive note as Annalise (Viola Davis) inspires a new crop of students and Connor (Jack Falahee) and Oliver (Conrad Ricamora) start planning a wedding. However, we soon get a rude awakening: It looks like there has been another murder.
Watch the trailer below and prepare for what the video description calls “another crazy-twisty season.”
The show brings back returning stars Davis, Falahee, and Ricamore, as well as their co-stars Billy Brown, Aja Naomi King, Matt McGorry, Karla Souza, Charlie Weber, and Liza Weil.
“How to Get Away with Murder” Season 5 premieres Thursday, Sept. 25 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
Viola Davis is a role model for so many people, and she holds herself to a high standard.
She is a three-time Oscar nominee — for “Doubt” in 2008, “The Help” in 2011, and “Fences” in 2016. She won the Oscar for “Fences,” and picked up multiple awards for her other TV/film projects, including several trophies for “The Help.”
But Davis told the New York Times she regrets her role in “The Help,” because we didn’t get to hear enough from “the help” themselves — the women like her character Aibileen Clark and Octavia Spencer‘s Oscar-winning role as Minny Jackson.
Davis brought up the movie herself as part of a fan Q&A; here’s that section of her interview:
Have you ever passed on a role and regretted it? — Toti Plascencia, Chicago
I have passed on a lot of roles. There have been one or two that I regretted for maybe a minute, and then I let it go. As I’m growing older, I pass on roles because of my experience of knowing once the movie’s out, I’m going to have to promote it. And I don’t want to promote anything that I don’t believe in.
Almost a better question is, have I ever done roles that I’ve regretted? I have, and “The Help’ is on that list. But not in terms of the experience and the people involved because they were all great. The friendships that I formed are ones that I’m going to have for the rest of my life. I had a great experience with these other actresses, who are extraordinary human beings. And I could not ask for a better collaborator than Tate Taylor.
I just felt that at the end of the day that it wasn’t the voices of the maids that were heard. I know Aibileen. I know Minny. They’re my grandma. They’re my mom. And I know that if you do a movie where the whole premise is, ‘I want to know what it feels like to work for white people and to bring up children in 1963,’ I want to hear how you really feel about it. I never heard that in the course of the movie.
Fair point. It was an ensemble movie, so a lot of focus was on the rest of the cast — including Emma Stone, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Chastain, Allison Janney, Sissy Spacek, etc. They all shared the screen, rather than truly making the movie from the perspective of the maids, handing the microphone to women history usually leaves in the background.
But Davis emphasized that she had a great experience making the film and loved the cast as well as writer/director Tate Taylor, who adapted Kathryn Stockett’s best-selling novel.
Viola Davis will next be seen in “Widows,” which opens November 16.
The Oscar-winning actress star is somehow even more intense in the trailer for Steve McQueen’s “Widows” than she is on her ABC drama “How to Get Away With Murder.”
Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Cynthia Erivo, and Elizabeth Debicki play women who have nothing in common except a debt left behind by their dead criminal husbands. To pay back the debt, they have to team up to complete the heist that killed their spouses.
“No one thinks we have the balls to pull this off,” Davis declares. No, they have something better.
McQueen certainly chose a much different genre than his previous Oscar-winning movie, “12 Years a Slave.” He co-wrote the “Widows” script with Gillian Flynn and the trailer has “Gone Girl” vibes — moody and dark with sharp dialogue. The cast is a murderer’s row of great actors, including Carrie Coon, Colin Farrell, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Garret Dillahunt, Jacki Weaver, Jon Bernthal, Robert Duvall, and Liam Neeson.
A “Scandal” / “How to Get Away With Murder” crossover episode is in the works at ABC and Shondaland, according to Deadline. It would air sometime later this season (“Scandal” is in its seventh and final season, “HTGAWM” is in its fourth).
“Scandal” star Kerry Washington and “HTGAWM” Emmy winner Viola Davis both teased the crossover in Instagram posts. In both pics, the actresses are posing on the other’s set.
This would mark the first crossover among the Shondaland TGIT shows. Although they often appear together in ABC promos, the cast members have never guest starred on each other’s shows.
But crossovers are frequent for other shows with the same executive producer (a la Dick Wolf’s “Law & Order” and One Chicago series) or networks (the CW’s DC Comics shows).
So, what could the crossover entail? Well, on “HTGAWM,” Annalise has embarked on a major class action lawsuit against Pennsylvania state for negligence in the public defender’s office. Perhaps Olivia gets the White House involved? Or Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) does, since he is interested in criminal justice reform?
Our biggest question: What about Meredith Grey?! Can’t she stop by to, uh, do some medical stuff on the East Coast?
All three TGIT shows return with new episodes January 18.
Denzel Washington Talks Going from Broadway to Big Screen in Fences
The Broadway revival of “Fences” in 2010 enjoyed great success, with more than 100 performances and a best actor Tony Award for Denzel Washington as Troy Maxson, the former baseball standout who wound up as a garbage collector struggling to support his family in 1950s Pittsburgh.
Still, Washington took his time making a film version of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1987 play.
“It was another two-and-half, three-year process of me getting up the nerve … to get ready for the film,” he tells Made in Hollywood Reporter Patrick Stinson.
The issues?
“Getting my head around it,” Washington says. “Should it be me doing to do all of this?”
In the end, he decided it should be him. “I knew the material as well as anyone because we did 114 shows.”
Fences Returns Broadway Revival Stars Denzel Washington and Viola Davis
It was the right call. Also starring Viola Davis from the Broadway run, plus newcomer Jovan Adepo as Washington’s son, Cory, this major Christmas holiday release has garnered rave reviews and Oscar buzz.
“August Wilson wrote a masterpiece that touches you wherever you’re vulnerable spot is,” he says. “For some you’re the son in that play, in that movie. For some you’re the father. For some you’re the wife. For some, you’re the daughter. There’s something there for everyone. We’ve all seen something like this in our live and had to deal with it.”
Olivia Pope, meet Annalise Keating.