It would appear that Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz‘s Antebellum (Lionsgate, 4.24) is a female-branded revisiting of Twelve Years A Slave by way of H.G. Wells. Successful author Veronica Henley (Janelle Monae) suddenly becomes a slave in the cotton fields after time-travelling back to the Antebellum pre-Civil War South. The trailer tells us, however, that it’s Veronica’s fate “to save us from our past.” So she’s going to overturn slavery in the same way that Rod Taylor lead an Eloi rebellion against the Morlocks? Or lead a Spartacus-like revolt a la Birth of a Nation? Or maybe a little Harriet action? Or transport her plantation pallies back to 2020 and find them jobs in online publishing?
