![margate, england january 08 olivia colman attends a photocall following a special screening of empire of light at dreamland on january 08, 2023 in margate, england photo by stuart c wilsongetty images](https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/olivia-colman-1676669056.jpg ""Empire of Light" Photocall")
Olivia Colman’s new film Empire of Light finally has a release date on Disney+.
The streamer has announced its March release slate and one of the first things to arrive in that month will be Empire of Light, which has been given a release date of March 1, 2023.
The synopsis of Empire of Light follows Hilary (Olivia Colman), “a cinema manager struggling with her mental health, and Stephen (Michael Ward), a new employee who longs to escape this provincial town in which he faces daily adversity.”
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“Both Hilary and Stephen find a sense of belonging through their unlikely and tender relationship and come to experience the healing power of music, cinema, and community,” the synopsis continues.
The film is directed by Sam Mendes, who has films including 1917 to his name, and is set in and around a faded old cinema in an English coastal town in the early 1980s.
Other films and shows that will fill Disney+’s March slate include new seasons of The Mandalorian, Abbott Elementary, Grey’s Anatomy and Station 19, as well as Kiera Knightley’s new film Boston Strangler.
Michael Ward recently spoke to Digital Spy about the surprising challenge of his role in Empire of Light.
Related: First trailer for Empire of Light
“Surprisingly, I'd probably say that the scenes that had that racial undertones, like when Mr Cooper comes into the cinema, I still can visually, like see [it] now, because it was just so undermining," he said of a scene where Stephen is confronted by a racist patron.
"The fact that Hillary doesn't come in and intercept the situation when she's the only one that truly can, because she's the manager, it's just frustrating as well.
"But I really just felt like Stephen in that moment. I felt what a lot of Black people would have felt back then. And I just didn't think it was gonna be like that,” he added.
Empire of Light streams on Disney+ on March 1, 2023.
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