Six Nigerian-Led Hollywood Movies in 2018

2017 was a pretty great year for cinema in general — horror movies made a massive comeback and the superhero genre was in top form — we didn’t have as many black-led films as we got in 2016.

Well, 2018 looks to be a lot different. From Marvel’s melanin-filled Black Panther to Ava Duvernay’s star-studded A Wrinkle in Time, the year has a lot of exciting films that are led by people who aren’t simply white and male. On the list below, we will only be focusing on the 2018 Hollywood films which are led or co-led by actors of Nigerian descent. From David Oyelowo in Gringo to Cynthia Erivo in Widows, these are the movies that are definitely going to take all our money.

Chiwetel Ejiofor in Come Sunday (January)

Chiwetel Ejiofor’ role as apostle Peter in the upcoming biblical biopic, Mary Magdalene is not the only religious drama the talented British-Nigerian is part of in 2018. Set to make its world premiere at the prestigious Sundance film festival in January, Netflix’s Come Sunday follows Carlton Pearson (Ejiofor), an evangelist who is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no hell.

David Oyelowo in Gringo (March 9)

Directed by Nash Edgerton, Gringo is an upcoming dark comedy which smartly puts the talented David Oyelowo front and centre. Oyelowo plays Harold Soyinka, a mild mannered businessman who goes from citizen to criminal after an incident in Mexico. Speaking to Empire about his character, Oyelowo said “[Harold] makes the ill-advised choice to fake his own kidnapping as revenge against his bosses. Really bad idea.” Oyelowo will star alongside Charlize Theron, Thandie Newton, Joel Edgerton and more.

John Boyega in Pacific Rim: Uprising (March 22)

The new king of sci-fi, John Boyega, not only stars in but produces the follow-up to Guillermo del Toro’s 2014 classic, Pacific Rim, which starred Idris Elba and Charlie Hunnam. In Pacific Rim: Uprising, Boyega plays ex-Jaeger pilot, Jake Pentecost (son of Idris Elba’s character, the late Stacker Pentecost), who is given a chance to unite the world and fellow Jaeger pilots to prevent humanity’s extinction.

Cynthia Erivo in Widows (November 16)

After winning a Tony, a Grammy and an Emmy for her Broadway debut as Celie in The Color Purple, the British-Nigerian actress will be making her film debut alongside Viola Davis in the upcoming heist thriller, Widows. Directed by Oscar winner, Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave), and written by Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl), Erivo will play one of the four titular widows, who all step up to finish a heist after their husbands are killed on the job.

Damson Idris in Farming (TBA)

After scoring a breakout role as the sweetest drug lord on TV in FX’s Snowfall, Damson Idris is set to star alongside Kate Beckinsale, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Genevieve Nnaji in Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s directorial debut, Farming, which just wrapped filming. The British-Nigerian actor will be playing the movie’s lead, a Nigerian boy who is sent to the UK by his parents to give him a better life. Instead, he grows up to become the leader of a racist skinhead gang in 1980s England.

Jovan Adepo in Overlord (October 26)

Jovan Adepo, the talented young actor who got to support Viola Davis and Denzel Washington in the Oscar-winning drama, Fences, gets a chance to lead his own movie sooner than we’d expected: the World War II horror drama, Overlord. Written by Billy Ray (Captain Phillips) and Mark L. Smith, (The Revenant), Adepo plays one of the American paratroopers dropped behind enemy lines, who soon realizes that the Nazis are using supernatural forces against them.