Chadwick Boseman in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom First-Look Photos

October 1, 2020

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom First-Look Photos Feature Viola Davis & Chadwick Boseman

Netflix has released the first photos from their upcoming film adaptation of August Wilson’s Tony Award-nominated play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, featuring our first look at Viola Davis’s character as well as a glimpse of Chadwick Boseman’s final performance following his passing last August due to colon cancer. The Denzel Washington-produced film is scheduled to make its debut on Friday, December 18. Check out the full photos in the gallery below!

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom will star Oscar-winning actress Viola Davis as she takes on the titular role of the trailblazing blues singer with the late Chadwick Boseman (42, Black Panther) set to play Levee, Ma’s young and ambitious trumpeter boyfriend, who aspired to make his own mark in the music industry.

The film’s official synopsis reads: “When Ma Rainey, the “Queen of the Blues,” makes a record in a studio in Chicago, 1927, tensions boil between her, her white agent and producer, and bandmates.”

Joining Davis and Boseman are Emmy winner Glynn Turman (Mr.Mercedes, How To Get Away With Murder, In Treatment), Colman Domingo (If Beale Street Could Talk) and Michael Potts (Show Me A Hero, True Detective).

The film will be directed by Tony winner George C. Wolfe (Lackawanna Blues, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks). The script will be penned by Ruben Santiago Hudson. Todd Black and Dany Wolf will produce alongside Denzel Washington. This project will be the third collaboration between Davis and Washington, who previously worked on the 2010 Broadway revival and 2016 film adaptation of Fences.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom opened at Broadway’s Cort Theatre in October 1984, playing 276 performances before closing in June 1985 when it earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Play and took home a New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play.