Judas and the Black Messiah: Daniel Kaluuya stars as Black Panther Fred Hampton in first trailer

Activist Hampton died after being shot by the FBI aged 21

The trailer for Fred Hampton biopic Judas and the Black Messiah starring Daniel Kaluuya has been released.

Dropping on Friday (7 August), the trailer sees the Get Out actor star as Hampton, the real life chairman of the Black Panther Party who was killed by the FBI at the age of 21.

Kaluuya is joined by Lakeith Stanfield as William O’Neal, the undercover informant who helped bring him down. Black Mirror star Jesse Plemons, Ashton Sanders and Dominique Fishback also feature.

Judas and the Black Messiah is directed and produced by Newlyweeds director Shaka King. This is his first studio film.

Speaking about the project, King said: “To me, the movie is, in a lot of ways, the capitalist in William O’Neal and the socialist in Fred Hampton… and the coward in William O’Neal and the revolutionary in Fred Hampton.

“I try to attach judgment to both of those ideologies but most people fall somewhere in between. You want to make a movie where the audience watches it and [walks] away questioning, ‘Where do I fall between those two?'”

Born in 1948, activist and revolutionary socialist Hampton founded the Rainbow Coalition, a political organisation calling for social change.

He died in 1969 after being shot by the FBI following an investigation into his behaviour as a “radical threat”.

Judas and the Black Messiah will be released in 2021.