Netflix has released the first trailer for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, the forthcoming adaptation of August Wilson’s play about the ‘Mother of the Blues’.
The film stars Viola Davis as singer Rainey and Chadwick Boseman as a trumpeter named Levee. This film would be the actor’s final role before his death earlier this year from colon cancer.
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom follows ‘Mother of the Blues’ Rainey and a group of musicians during a recording session. Tensions rise during the course of the afternoon in 1920s Chicago. Late to the session, the fearless, fiery Ma engages in a battle of wills with her white manager and producer over control of her music.
As the band waits in the studio’s claustrophobic rehearsal room, ambitious trumpeter Levee who has an eye for Ma’s girlfriend and is determined to stake his own claim on the music industry — spurs his fellow musicians into an eruption of stories revealing truths that will forever change the course of their lives.
Adapted from two-time Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson’s play, the film celebrates the transformative power of the blues and the artists who refuse to let society’s prejudices dictate their worth.
Directed by George C. Wolfe and adapted for the screen by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, the film is produced by Fences Oscar nominees Denzel Washington and Todd Black.
The movie arrives on Netflix on December 18.
