The Woman King director Gina Prince-Bythewood is celebrating the movie topping the weekend box office.
The Woman King will win the weekend box office with an estimated $18 million opening. The movie’s budget was $50 million.
Prince-Bythewood (left) is battling Twitter critics who say ‘Woman King’ is just another slavery movie that twists historical facts for entertainment value.
‘Woman King’ starring Viola Davis (right) and John Boyega, is a fictional account of an all-female African military in Dahomey.
Black Twitter argued the absurdity of a female general and her band of female warriors protecting the Dahomeys whilst they participated in the slave trade.
Davis’s general Nanisca struggles to discourage King Ghezo (John Boyega) from selling his people to the Europeans.
Black Twitter says the film’s writers Maria Bello and Dana Stevens turned a story about Africans selling slaves into a movie about Black female empowerment.
“You don’t have to be very “woke” to see the problem here,” one Twitter user wrote.
Prince-Bythewood’s response to critics is to shut up and go see the movie.
“I learned early on you cannot win an argument on Twitter,” Prince-Bythewood told IndieWire.
“And I know all of that is going to go away once they see the film. There’s an assumption we’re not dealing with it and we are dealing with it. So I have to live in that confidence. They’re going to see the film and they’re going to [like] it.”
Watch the trailer below.
