The Woman King: Read the script written by Dana Stevens for The Viola Davis – West African War Epic

Editor’s note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the screenplays of films that will appear in this year’s film awards race.

The battle for the historical action film The queen of women began back in 2015 when producer Cathy Schulman and actress/producer Maria Bello approached Viola Davis about starring in an all-black warrior story. With Davis on board and Sony’s TriStar Pictures on board, the team gave screenwriter Dana Stevens the opportunity of a lifetime she couldn’t refuse.

The queen of womenBased on a real-life faction of Beninese female soldiers known as the Agoije, it follows leader Nanisca (Davis) and her brutal tribe of warriors as they defend Dahomey’s kingdom against a violent neighboring tribe and Europeans profiting from the slave trade. The film also stars Thuso Mbedu, Lashana Lynch, John Boyega and Sheila Atim.

When writing the script, Stevens and the rest of the crew had to do deep research to accurately adapt the world of the Agojie in the 19th century. Stevens worked closely with Princeton historian, economist and Benin scholar Leonard Wantchekon to help the script portray West African culture, the complex affairs of the Dahomey Empire and the fierce resilience of the Agojie warriors.

“I was struck by the photographs of the real warriors, the eyewitness accounts of their abilities,” Stevens said in a press interview. “This story is not very well known – there are so many cultures that we have overlooked and not portrayed in films. It was an opportunity to tell a true, epic story about these extraordinary women.”

The movie premiered at the 2022 Toronto Film Festival and has since won Film of the Year and Best Film awards from AFI and the African-American Film Critics Association.

Read Stevens’ script below.