FILM · 2022 · IRELAND
The Woman King
19 archived facts 6 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (19)
- #001
Producer Maria Bello traveled to Benin in West Africa to research the Agojie and returned to the United States convinced she had found a great film presentation. The project then spent years in development hell, first at STX (which offered only $5 million for the budget) and then at TriStar. After the massive success of Black Panther (2018), however, the film was greenlit with a budget of $50 million.
- #002
To prepare for the action scenes, the cast trained for four months before filming: each day they lifted weights for 90 minutes and then trained for three and a half hours with a stunt coordinator, learning martial arts, sword and spear work, and doing some cardio.
- #003
Although the Agojie were largely real (they existed for more than a century), they have also inspired many interpretations in popular culture, perhaps most notably the Dora Milaje in Black Panther.
- #004
In the film, Nanisca confronts Ghezo about the immorality of selling Black slaves to the Portuguese and instead proposes trading in palm oil production. Although this conversation is fictional, it is based on the historical fact that Dahomey and the Agojie needed to begin trading palm oil with Europeans between 1840 and 1870, because Europe had already begun to outlaw slavery. The shift was necessary for trade, not because of a moral awakening around the immorality of selling other Africans into slavery. Ultimately, this led Dahomey's two political parties to polarize over what to trade as slavery became less profitable outside Africa.
- #005
The film's title comes from the Dahomey people's belief in a legend of two kings, one male and one female, who were equal to each other, and from the expectation that Nanisca would be crowned as the Woman King; this is why the film was not simply called "The Queen" or something similar.
- #006
The fictional Portuguese-speaking white slave trader Santos Ferreira is welcomed by King Ghezo but fails to establish a good relationship with him. According to the site History vs. Hollywood, the character was "possibly loosely inspired" by the real-life Brazilian slave trader Francisco Félix de Sousa, who helped Ghezo gain power. These events are well depicted in Werner Herzog's Cobra Verde (1987).
- #007
For the foundations of how the Agojie moved and used their weapons, Stevens, along with stunt coordinator Daniel Hernandez and the rest of the team, relied on Kali, a fighting system from the Philippines that emphasizes various impact and edged weapons as well as dramatic joint locks and grappling.
- #008
To get the women of The Woman King into genuinely authentic fighting shape, writer Dana Stevens put them through a regimen that included jujitsu, the Filipino blade-fighting style known as Kali, Chinese Wushu, and extensive machete and staff work.
- #009
As historical consultant, Wantchekon ensured that Dahomey was portrayed not as a stereotypical primitive tribe but as an advanced, sovereign state. For example, the weapons used by the Agojie and their male counterparts were mostly locally produced and not all imported from Europe.
- #010
In a 2022 interview with Screen Rant, Gina Prince-Bythewood said of the difficulty of the shoot: "This film was the hardest shoot of my career. We had 63 days to shoot all of this, which meant every day had to be overly planned. Of course, the battles and the training… I loved going to training just because it was fun to watch. I wanted to get in there, I wanted to grab a machete. So… my life was this film for a full year."
- #011
Most of the department heads were either women or people of different ethnic backgrounds: cinematography, production design, editing, makeup, hair styling, costumes and visual effects.
- #012
The name Breonna mentioned in the mid-credits scene is a reference to Breonna Taylor.
- #013
Lupita Nyong'o was the first person offered the role of Izogie, which ultimately went to Lashana Lynch.
- #014
The story and producing credit belong to Maria Bello, Viola Davis's friend and her co-star in Prisoners (2013), in which they played friends and the mothers of two missing girls.
- #015
It is Viola Davis's third film to receive an "A+" from CinemaScore, after Antwone Fisher (2002) and The Help (2011).
- #016
Fongbe, a language of Benin, is used in several scenes.
- #017
The film was named one of the top ten films of 2022 by the American Film Institute and the National Board of Review. At the 28th Critics' Choice Awards, the film was nominated for Best Costume Design, Best Acting Ensemble, Best Director and Best Actress for Davis. Davis also earned Best Actress nominations at the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the BAFTA Film Awards and the NAACP Image Awards.
- #018
The Brazilian characters in the film (Malik and Santo Ferreira) have quite good Portuguese accents, despite being played by English actors.
- #019
The Woman King is a 2022 fictionalized historical drama depicting the Agojie and its remarkable all-female warrior regiment in the West African Kingdom of Dahomey. Set in the 1820s, the American action-adventure film stars Viola Davis as a general who trains the next generation of female warriors to fight their enemies. Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, the film's screenplay is adapted from a story written by Dana Stevens with Maria Bello. The film also stars Sucho Mbedu, Lashana Lynch, Sheila Atim, Hero Fiennes Tiffin and John Boyega.
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