Fresh off the release of the trailer for awards contender, Fences, Viola Davis has firmed up her next film, Steve McQueen’s upcoming heist thriller Widows.
Based on the 2002 British miniseries about a caper gone wrong, Widows follows four armed robbers who get killed in a failed heist attempt, leaving their widows to finish the job.
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Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl) will pen the screenplay with McQueen, who will also produce the film. Iain Canning and Emile Sherman of See-Saw Films, who teamed with McQueen on Shame and also produced the best picture Oscar winner The Kings Speech.
Widows will be McQueen’s first film since winning the best picture Academy Award for 12 Years a Slave. McQueen and Flynn have recently partnered on the HBO limited series Codes of Conduct, also written by Flynn.
HBO recently put Codes of Conduct, on the back burner giving McQueen time to focus his energy on Widows. Reportedly, Jennifer Lawrence was also approached to play one of the four leads, but scheduling conflicts forced her to pass on the series.
Davis, the Emmy-winning star of How to Get Away With Murder, has been busy balancing her TV and film schedule in the past year. Davis was recently seen as Amanda Waller in Suicide Squad and is expected to be in Oscar conversation for her upcoming performance in Fences, a part she already won a Tony for on Broadway.