It‘s remarkable what a Marvel contract will do for an actor’s profile. Chadwick Boseman has spent over a decade working his way up through episodic television appearances to little seen, excellent lead roles in films such as 42 and Get On Up. Then came his casting as Black Panther in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and suddenly, Chadwick Boseman has found himself at the top of everybody’s wish-list. The result is that a Chadwick Boseman film now attracts a great deal of attention, and some interesting casting – and Message From The King is no exception.
With an apparent view to begin shooting in March, Boseman is set to headline the action thriller, which has Fabrice Du Welz (Alleluia) in the director’s chair. It is the tale of a South African man named Jacob King, who travels to Los Angeles in search of his sister’s stepson, and an appropriate amount of vengeance, because the young man has been sold into the city’s underworld. If that sounds like a Liam Neeson movie, it’s probably because the script comes from Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell, who wrote Unknown.
This is Chadwick Boseman’s movie, though, and as such, there is some great casting on the horizon for a variety of particularly complex characters. Luke Evans (Dracula Untold) is in talks to play a cosmetic dentist whose Beverly Hills practice gives him a range of connections of both the legal and illegal kind. The dentist offers to help Jacob King in his search, but his motivations are almost as shady as his practice. Teresa Palmer (Warm Bodies) is attached to play a woman supporting both her drug habit and young daughter by any means necessary, and Alfred Molina (The Normal Heart) is on board as a Hollywood producer whose underworld involvements may help find the missing boy.
With Chadwick Boseman reportedly on board as an executive producer, as well as leading man, and a shoot scheduled to begin soon, Message From The King could be hitting the big screen early in 2016.
Published: Feb 16, 2015 01:37 pm