Chadwick Boseman and Lupita Nyong’o are both presenting at the Oscars on Sunday. No idea if they’re presenting together, but they’re both riding the Black Panther high—and it will be the dominant film again on Oscar weekend which, if Get Out were to pull off some kind of upset, would be serendipitous—so they both get to do that superhero strut on stage, together or separate. (Typically when you get Avengers together in a room they become the coolest circle to be around, but this year I think the delegation from Wakanda will have that honor.) And this will be a chance to start seeding “Black Panther + Oscar” in people’s minds, setting up, hopefully, an award push later this year. Marvel doesn’t really exert themselves for the Academy, but maybe this year they will make an exception, since they have an exceptional movie. After all, Get Out proves you can ride February momentum all the way to the Dolby.
But the ceremony is not the only place Wakanda is representing during Oscar week. Danai Gurira, Angela Bassett, and Sydelle Noel (GLOW, and also one of the Dora Milaje) were at the Essence Black Women in Hollywood Oscars Luncheon yesterday. (Lainey: also see photos of Angela killing it in purple at a couple of other pre-Oscar parties last night.) I love that they coordinated their looks. Lupita was there as well. Black Panther has been in theaters three weeks now, but it’s still “Panther time” and the cast is still making a concerted effort to stand out. It’s still happening, it’s still special, they’re still enjoying it. As well they should—Black Panther is steadily moving up the ranks of the biggest movies of all time. They own the culture right now. F*cking revel in that sh*t.
And speaking of Danai and Lupita, there is an update on Americanah. Lupita picked up the rights to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel a few year ago now, and the latest news is that Gurira will write the script and they are both producing it for TV. So it’s an Eclipse reunion on what is bound to be a hot ticket prestige miniseries. Someone should probably just start engraving those Emmys now.
