I was already hearing bad things about John Ridley’s “Shirley,” but there’s now word of more reshoots occurring on the upcoming Netflix-produced film.
This is a biopic about Shirley Chisholm, America's first Black congresswoman. Chisholm is played here by the talented Regina King. On-paper, it could be good, especially with ‘12 Years A Slave’ scribe Ridley at the helm.
However, here is a test-screening reaction I posted last July. It was not flattering at all.
“Hey Ruimy, “Shirley” had an online test screening. I attended. This is my reaction. It’s bad. Like, comically bad. Every cliche in a generic biopic imaginable is in this. It’s through and through Oscar-bait trash. I would love to say, at the very least, that King was good in the role, unfortunately she’s not. It’s like she’s doing an impression in a comedy sketch. If anyone had this in their predictions, I would advise them to remove it. This is going nowhere.”
Yikes. Of course, this is just one reaction. Another one, from an anonymous reader, wasn’t positive either, saying the movie is “fine” and that it was “a super generic biopic.”
“Shirley” currently doesn’t have a release date, and with these kinds of reactions you might expect it to skip the fall fests, or just go to TIFF. Netflix could maybe make a push to campaign King’s performance, but that remains to be seen.
It’s, of course, still very early in the year, so we don’t really know what Netflix’s main Oscar horses will be. They always have a handful of titles ready to be launched in the fall.
This year we should keep our eyes out on David Fincher’s The Killer, Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, George C. Wolfe’s Rustin, Wes Anderson’s Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, Sam Esmail’s Leave the World Behind, Pablo Larrain’s El Conde, and Niki Caro’s The Mother.