Those who follow the work of filmmaker Roland Emmerich may be surprised to learn that his next film doesn't feature the White House getting blown up. Nor is there some kind of natural disaster threatening to level the entire planet. You'll have to wait for next year's Independence Day sequel for that. Instead he's looking for explosions of a totally different kind with Stonewall, a drama based on the Stonewall Riots, considered to be the spark that lit a fire under the gay rights movement.
The first trailer for the film has been released and it co-opts the words of Barack Obama to show the progress other civil rights movements have made over the years. Starring Jeremy Irvine, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Ron Perlman, Joey King, Jonny Beauchamp, Caleb Landry Jones, and more, the film centers on a young man in 1969 New York who becomes part of the LGBT community at a pivotal moment in history. Here's the official synopsis:
STONEWALL is a drama about a young man in New York caught up during the 1969 Stonewall Riots, a pivotal event widely considered the starting point for the modern gay civil rights movement. Kicked out of his own home, young Danny Winters (Jeremy Irvine) flees to NY, leaving behind his beloved sister (Joey King). Homeless and destitute, he befriends a group of street kids who soon introduce him to the watering hole of the local drag queens, gays, lesbians, and everything in between: The Stonewall Inn. However, this shady, mafia-run club is far from a safe-haven. At the bar, Danny meets the suave Trevor (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) before catching the eye of Ed Murphy (Ron Perlman), Stonewall's repulsive manager who colludes with corrupt police, exploits homeless youth for financial gain, and is even suspected to have had a hand in some of their "disappearances." It spirals out of control when the police unexpectedly raid Stonewall. In a storm of anger and with the toss of a single brick, a riot ensues and a crusade for equality is born.
Stonewall hits theaters on September 25th.
