The Woman King Trivia | 75 facts about the new film

“The Woman King” is a new historical epic film about the all-female warrior unit who protected the West African kingdom of Dahomey.

So let’s dive into some trivia and facts about the film.

1. The Woman King is a 2022 American historical epic film
2. The film is about the Agojie, the all-female warrior unit who protected the West African kingdom of Dahomey during the 17th to 19th centuries
3. Set in the 1820s
4. The film stars Viola Davis as a general who trains the next generation of warriors to fight their enemies
5. It is directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and written by Dana Stevens
6. It is based on a story she wrote with Maria Bello
7. The film also stars Thuso Mbedu, Lashana Lynch, Sheila Atim, and John Boyega
8. Bello conceived the idea for The Woman King in 2015 after visiting Benin, where Dahomey used to be located, and learning the history of the Agojie
9. Convinced she had found a story worth telling, she recruited Cathy Schulman to develop it into a feature film
10. They pitched it to several studios, who turned it down due to financial concerns
11. After they met with TriStar Pictures in 2017, the film was greenlit in 2020
12. Production began in South Africa in November 2021
13. It was shut down due to the COVID-19 Omicron variant a few weeks later
14. It resumed in early 2022
15. Polly Morgan was the cinematographer
16. During post-production, the musical score was composed by Terence Blanchard
17. And editing was completed by Terilyn A. Shropshire
18. The Woman King had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2022
19. Sony Pictures Releasing released the film in theaters in the United States and Canada on September 16, 2022
20. Following the festival screening, the film received positive reviews
21. With critics praising its cast, particularly Davis, and the action choreography
22. The Woman King was produced by Maria Bello and Cathy Schulman, written by Dana Stevens with contributions by Gina Prince-Bythewood, and directed by Prince-Bythewood
23. It is a co-production between TriStar Pictures and Entertainment One
24. On September 19, 2015, Bello used a moment when she was presenting actress Viola Davis with an award at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles to pitch her idea for the movie in front of the crowd
25. The crowd cheered at the notion of seeing Davis in the lead role
26. Schulman first tried to set up the film at STX Films
27. There she was the head of the production, but the studio was only willing to offer an unsatisfactory $5 million
28. After leaving STX in 2016, Schulman worked with Bello, Davis, and Julius Tennon, Davis’ husband and producing partner at JuVee Productions, to take the idea elsewhere
29. Studios who turned it down cited an unlikely chance for the film to turn a profit
30. Others, according to Davis, wanted to cast light-skinned, well-known actresses, which they refused to do for historical accuracy and the audience’s sake
31. Prince-Bythewood, also in 2016, was approached to write the screenplay but could not commit due to a scheduling conflict with Silver & Black
32. In 2017, without a script or director, the producers met with TriStar’s then-chief Hannah Minghella and then-senior vice president Nicole Brown
33. Within two years, Brown had taken over Minghella’s position and made The Woman King one of TriStar’s top priorities
34. In early 2018, the commercial success of the superhero movie Black Panther, which featured a fictionalized version of the Agojie, further motivated the crew to move forward with the project
35. In March 2018, Davis and Lupita Nyong’o were announced to star
36. Nyong’o role was ultimately played by Thuso Mbedu
37. Prince-Bythewood read the screenplay once it was completed and came on board to direct
38. In 2020, The Woman King was greenlit with a $50 million budget
39. Prince-Bythewood referenced epic films like The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Braveheart (1995), and Gladiator (2000), and athleticism as influences
40. Her background in sports gave her a perspective on the realism of fight scenes
41. In crafting the story, she sought for the women to be multi-faceted in both their fighting ability and their emotional reactions
42. She worked with production designer Akin McKenzie to learn about the Agojie
43. Their research included books, out-of-print texts, photographs, and writings by Princeton professor Leonard Wantchekon
44. For four months before the shoot, the cast performed 90 minutes a day of weight lifting with trainer Gabriela Mclain
45. Followed by three and a half hours of fight training with stunt coordinator Danny Hernandez, which included running, martial arts, and working with swords and spears
46. Davis was inspired by pro boxer Claressa Shields
47. The Woman King received positive reviews from critics for the cast’s performance, including Viola Davis’s starring role and Thuso Mbedu’s breakout performance, and its action choreography, while some disappointment was expressed in the script
48. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 94% rating
49. Based on 119 critics’ reviews
50. With an average rating of 7.8/10
51. The website’s consensus reads, “All hail Viola Davis! The Woman King rules”
52. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 77 out of 100
53. Based on 41 critics
54. Indicating “generally favorable reviews”
55. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a rare average grade of “A+” on an A+ to F scale
56. The Woman King is set in the kingdom of Dahomey in the year 1823
57. The kingdom existed from around 1600 through 1904, and the Agojie existed for most of that time
58. Viola Davis plays the Agojie general Nanisca, who is fictional
59. History vs. Hollywood speculated her name was inspired by an Agojie teenage recruit of the same name who was written about by a French naval officer in 1889
60. John Boyega plays King Ghezo, a real-life figure who ruled Dahomey from 1818 to 1858 and engaged in the Atlantic slave trade through the end of his reign
61. Hero Fiennes Tiffin plays the white Portuguese-speaking slave trader Santo Ferreira who is fictional and portrayed as an enemy to Ghezo
62. History vs. Hollywood said the character was “possibly loosely inspired” by Francisco Félix de Sousa, a Brazilian slave trader who in actuality helped Ghezo gain power
63. Historically, Dahomey was a kingdom that conquered other African states and enslaved their citizens to sell in the Atlantic slave trade, and most of the kingdom’s wealth was derived from slavery
64. The Agojie had a history of participating in slave raiding, and that slavery in Dahomey persisted after the British Empire stopped Dahomey from continuing in the Atlantic slave trade
65. In the film’s setting of the 1820s, Nanisca confronts Ghezo about the immorality of selling Dahomey slaves to the Portuguese and suggests trading in palm oil production instead
66. Nanisca being fictional, the confrontation did not take place
67. Smithsonian wrote, “Though Ghezo did at one point explore palm oil production as an alternative source of revenue, it proved far less lucrative, and the king soon resumed Dahomey’s participation in the slave trade”
68. At the film’s onset in the 1820s, as in real life, Dahomey is a tributary state of the Oyo Empire, which it had become in 1730
69. As portrayed in the film, Dahomey fought successfully to be freed from its status under Oyo
70. Also in the film, European colonization is a threat to Dahomey
71. But in real life, territorial disputes began with France in 1863
72. This led to the First Franco-Dahomean War in 1890
73. Followed by the Second Franco-Dahomean War in 1892
74. France defeated Dahomey in 1894 and colonized it
75. The kingdom became French Dahomey