First Look at Chadwick Boseman as James Brown in 'Get On Up'

Just months after knocking it out of the park (pun intended) as Jackie Robinson in 42, Chadwick Boseman has moved on to play another prominent African-American icon. He landed the sought after role of the "Godftather of Soul" James Brown in Get On Up, the follow-up film from The Help director, Tate Taylor.  There was a lot of skepticism Boseman could make the transformation since he and Brown are nothing alike, but in the first photo released by EW he actually looks the part.

So what made Taylor decide to take on this film rather than doing something similar to The Help? According to him, he had received nothing but "women in pain" scripts afterwards, but fell for Brown's life story, promising to show us the good and the bad about the legendary singer...

Taylor: “As I dug in and started to discover more about him, the good and the bad, I loved the reasons he was often bad and I loved the reasons he was good. I love that he would stop at nothing to keep reinventing himself so he could stay current, and as a result he changed music.”

As for the vocals, Boseman's voice will be overlaid with Brown's to create something we haven't heard before.  He'll be joined in the film by Octavia Spencer, Nelsan Ellis, Jill Scott, Dan Akroyd, Tikka Sumpter, Viola Davis, Lennie James, and Craig Robinson who is also pictured.

Get On Up opens August 1st 2014.