Chadwick Boseman Is A Man On A Mission In Marshall Trailer

Before he was the first African-American Supreme Court justice and before he won the case that desegregated schools, Thurgood Marshall was just a man on a mission. The new trailer for the biopic Marshall, which stars Black Panther's Chadwick Boseman as the title character, begins to tell the story of that mission, which involved the attorney fighting for Joseph Spell (Sterling K. Brown), a black servant accused of attacking his employer Eleanor Strubing (Kate Hudson).

The trailer begins by showing the trials Marshall has to go through as one of the few black attorneys in the south, getting attacked while drinking at a local bar. "My great-grandaddy, he was a slave, but we're not slaves now," Marshall says. "We've got weapons we didn't have before. We've got the law."

It then moves into Spell's trial, which a radio announcer notes will "show the world if a colored man can get a fair trial in the United States." There is a lot of pressure on Marshall, with 13 million black Americans depending on him, but he seems pretty confident about his ability to take on the case. He also ends up getting "a partner the jury can relate to" in the form of attorney Sam Friedman (Josh Gad), who knows he has to help despite the fact that his life is on the line.

There may be some issues in their case, though, as Spell is holding something back. "I only represent innocent people, people accused because of their race," Marshall tells Spell, who assures him that he is innocent. However, it turns out that Spell lied in a sworn statement, and he won't reveal the full truth. "Why'd I lie?" Spell says. "I lied because the truth gets me killed." 

Despite Spell's reluctance to reveal the real events, Marshall quickly proves that he is the right man for the job of defending him. "If you want freedom, you're gonna have to fight for it," he says. "The only way to get through a bigot's door is to break it down." 

Dan Stevens, Keesha Sharp, James Cromwell, Sophia Bush, and Rozonda Thomas also star in the movie, which was directed by Reginald Hudlin, an Oscar nominee for producing Django Unchained who is also set to direct the upcoming supernatural superhero movie Shadowman, based on a script from Jacob and Michael Koskoff. The movie is set for an Oct. 13 release; while we wait, see some of the other amazing trailers released so far this month.