We’re only just at the start of watching Chadwick Boseman‘s star rise. The actor broke out with the baseball drama “42,” and next winter will be leading his first tentpole with Marvel‘s “Black Panther.” But coming in between is “Marshall,” where Boseman will play the legendary Thurgood Marshall in a movie being released right in the Oscar season sweet spot.
Directed by Reginald Hudlin — who is taking quite the gear shift from his lengthy TV resume and movies like “Boomerang” and “The Ladies Man” — the film tells the true story of an early case worked by Marshall that helped set the stage for the battles that lay ahead in the Civil Rights movement. Here’s the official synopsis:
Marshall is based on a true incident in the life of Thurgood Marshall, when he was a young lawyer, long before his appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. As the nation teeters on the brink of WWII, a nearly bankrupt NAACP sends Marshall to conservative Connecticut to defend a black chauffeur against his wealthy socialite employer in a sexual assault and attempted murder trial that quickly became tabloid fodder. In need of a high profile victory but muzzled by a segregationist court, Marshall is partnered with Samuel Friedman, a young Jewish lawyer who has never tried a case. Marshall and Friedman struggle against a hostile storm of fear and prejudice, driven to discover the truth in the sensationalized trial which helped set the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement to come.
Co-starring Josh Gad, Kate Hudson, Dan Stevens, James Cromwell, Sterling K. Brown and Keesha Sharp, “Marshall” opens on October 13th.
