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Lupita Nyong'o And David Oyelowo's 'Queen Of Katwe' Gets A Trailer

This article is more than 7 years old.

Walt Disney is unquestionably going to dominate the blockbuster/tentpole field in 2016. Captain America: Civil WarZootopia, The Jungle Book, Finding DoryAlice Through the Looking GlassDoctor StrangeMoana, and Rogue One will combine to give the Mouse House a massive calendar year here and abroad. So it's nice to see that they still will release a few not-so-tentpole/franchise-friendly films this year.

And one of those rare items is Queen of Katwe. The trailer for this year-end (hopefully) award's bait biopic just dropped this morning. The film, which stars Lupita Nyong'o, David Oyelowo, and Madina Nalwanga, is a biopic about a young Ugandan girl who discovers that she may be a chess prodigy. It is another notch in Disney's current drive to offer a wealth of varied female-led multiplex films, with the obvious caveat that this one stars a young lady who looks like Madina Nalwanga.

I wish that were less of a big deal, but we can't pretend that it's not. If you look around at the sheer excitement shown online by Florence Kasumba's blink-and-you-miss-it cameo in Captain America: Civil War, you have a pretty good idea of how black women and black girls (among others) are genuinely starved for mainstream representation. The reaction is exciting and depressing at the same time. The good news is that Disney now has Kasumba as an "added value element" in their upcoming Black Panther movie if they so choose.

Oh, and it will have been three years since the release of 12 Years a Slave when Queen of Katwe opens on September 23rd. In that time (and her subsequent Oscar win for Best Supporting Actress), we have only seen Nyong'o onscreen for a brief supporting role in Non-Stop in early 2014. Her voice (and/or motion capture performance) is featured in The Force Awakens and The Jungle Book, but she is among many higher-profile minority actors who find themselves appearing in major blockbusters with their faces obscured by makeup and special effects.

She's been busy, especially on Broadway, but it will be nice to see her face, as opposed to just hearing her voice, in a feature film again. But come what may, that Disney is using its capital to make this movie and release this movie is, well, they don't deserve a medal or anything, but it's not nothing. As for the Mira Nair film, it looks rock-solid. I like both the director (she of Monsoon Wedding and The Namesake) and screenwriter William Wheeler (Richard Gere's underseen Howard Hughes caper The Hoax). So there is little reason to be concerned.

But come what may, it's one of a handful of Disney films coming this year, along with the already-released The Finest Hours and the upcoming The Light Between Oceans (a Touchtone release from the old DreamWorks SKG deal with Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, and Rachel Weisz) that isn't a big budget fantasy, franchise entry and/or animated film. I tend to like many of their larger offerings, and there is no law saying they have to spend their capital on anything beyond what they do so well. But if you want so-called "old school movies" from the Mouse House alongside the fantasy tentpole franchises, you might want to spend your time and money on this one.

Queen of Katwe opens from Walt Disney on September 23rd. We'll see.

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