Hold my beer first, because I’m about to write a thesis on why bringing two young Hollywood stars from different successful movie franchises to star in a movie is genius. John Boyega and Letitia Wright are Hollywood darlings intrinsically involved in Star Wars and Black Panther, the latter I have seen many times and reinforces the sprawling complexity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Wright is Black Panther‘s breakout star with her character Shuri, which, in turn, has raised a legion of fan support harping on her intelligence and smarts.
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So is Boyega’s Finn, a stormtrooper of the First Order and appeared first in Star Wars: The First Awakens. Remember the backlash Boyega received in 2015 for playing a black stormtrooper? It is, in some ways, responsible for his ascension into a beloved Star Wars character. Now, it’s being reported that Boyega and Wright have teamed up to star in the movie adaptation of the Katie Khan novel Hold Back the Stars. That’s a dynamic duo right there. Published last year by Simon & Schuster, Hold Back the Stars revolves around a man and a woman who revisit memories of their love affair on an utopian Earth while they are trapped in the vast void of space with only 90 minutes of oxygen left.
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It feels like Gravity meets Romeo and Juliet. Per the Hollywood Reporter, Hold Back the Stars will be directed by Mike Cahill and he’s pretty much a strong choice. His 2014 sci-fi love story I Origins was an underrated gem which balanced an epic scope with an intimate romance, and in the interim he helmed the pilots for Syfy’s The Magicians and their upcoming horror series Nightflyers.
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The prospect of Boyega and Wright teaming up for anything is wildly exciting, but the specific premise of Hold Back the Stars sounds pretty neat – especially through Cahill’s lens. Bring it on.
When Bernard Dayo isn’t writing about pop culture, he’s watching horror movies and reading comics and trying to pretend his addiction to Netflix isn’t a serious condition.
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