With competing projects by Oliver Stone and Paul Greengrass stuck at various stages of development, it's Ava DuVernay's Martin Luther King biopic that's moving forward fastest. David Oyelowo stars as Dr King in Selma, with Tom Wilkinson as President Lyndon B. Johnson and Tim Roth as Alabama Governor George Wallace. The Paramount film's release now only a few weeks away, and the first trailer has just marched online.
**Selma **was previously in the hands of Lee Daniels, but he passed it to DuVernay (Middle Of Nowhere) last summer. DuVernay went on to overhaul playwrite Paul Webb's original screenplay, but as the trailer makes clear, the focus remains on the historic civil rights march that began in the titular Alabama town in 1965. The protest, facing violent opposition, marked a turning point for African-Americans in their struggle for equality, and took three attempts before it finally reached its target, Montgomery, a town just 54 miles away.
Oprah Winfrey, Common, Giovanni Ribisi, Carmen Ejogo, Dylan Baker, Wendell Pierce and Cuba Gooding Jr. are also part of the cast, and Christian Coulson (Slumdog Millionaire) and Brad Pitt (via his Plan B production company) are among the producers. Filming took place in Georgia over the summer, and **Selma **is released in the US over the Christmas and New Year period. We get it in the UK on February 6.