Netflix Releasing What’ll Surely Be A Devastating, But Necessary, Look At Chadwick Boseman’s Career

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Similar to the tragic death of Kobe Bryant (which was over a year ago, by the way — time has just lost all sense of meaning), the passing of Chadwick Boseman last August still just doesn’t feel real to me. They feel more like half-remembered nightmares than they do lived-in experiences. I suppose it was the suddenness of it all, and the cultural crater left in their absence that makes the passing of Kobe and Chadwick so devastating: these men were icons and we perhaps didn’t fully appreciate that until it was too late. Unfortunately, such is the case far too often in life.

Nevertheless, while it may be too late to let them feel our appreciation, the celebration of their legacies now becomes necessary to make up for lost time. Netflix — the studio that gave Boseman what is shaping up to be an Academy Award-winning final role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom — plans to do exactly that with Chadwick Boseman: Portrait of an Artist Special.

Hitting Netflix on April 17, just a week before the Oscars, Chadwick Boseman: Portrait of an Artist Special will invite audiences “into a conversation with Chadwick Boseman’s collaborators about his extraordinary artistic process.”

RELATED: Chadwick Boseman Picks Up Another Prestigious Award, Is The Odds-On Favorite To Win The Oscar

Should Boseman win the Oscar for Best Actor for his work in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, he’ll be the first actor to posthumously win an Academy Award since Heath Ledger (Best Supporting Actor for The Dark Knight), and the first actor to posthumously win the Academy Award for Best Actor since Peter Finch in 1976 (Network).

With a Golden Globe and SAG Award for Best Actor already under his belt, Boseman is now a massive favorite to take home the Academy Award, with most betting sites having his odds at around -1500. If it happens, it’ll be well-deserved: Boseman was an icon. Rest in Peace, Chadwick.

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