Viola Davis, Lupita Nyong’o to star as mother-daughter warrior duo in colonial era epic, The Woman King

TriStar Pictures have acquired the worldwide distribution rights to The Woman King, a timely female-driven epic that will star Lupita Nyong’o and Viola Davis, Variety reports. Based on an original story by Maria Bello, The Woman King is inspired by true events which took place at the Kingdom of Dahomey, a powerful African kingdom which prevailed around 1600 to 1894 till their defeat at the hands of the French. [caption id=“attachment_4373699” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Lupita Nyong’o (L) and Viola Davis. Reuters[/caption] Davis will star as Nanisca, a general of the all-female military unit called the Amazons, while Nyong’o will play her daughter, Nawi. The film, set in colonial-era Africa, will also be produced by Davis and her husband Julius Tennon along with Cathy Schulman. “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,” Schulman told Variety. Hannah Minghella, president of TriStar Pictures, was excited to work with the Oscar-winning actor and the Black Panther star. “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,” she said.