Chris here. Remember a few weeks back when this tweet referencing Rihanna and Lupita Nyong'o made the rounds and gave us all a good delighted gasp?:
Rihanna looks like she scams rich white men and lupita is the computer smart best friend that helps plan the scans https://t.co/PhWs1xd3nj
— WHOOPHERASSKOURTNI (@1800SADGAL) April 18, 2017
The fun continued as Lupita and Rihanna chimed in with their enthusiasm, bringing along multi-hyphenate talents Ava DuVernay and Insecure’s Issa Rae. Well, it wasn't just playful chatter between celebs over Twitter - this project just became real...
This may very well be the first film to come together over Twitter. At the Cannes marketplace, Netflix just made a massive offer to produce the film with these four women all signed on. Now not every film that gets presold at a festival market like Cannes makes it in front of cameras, but Netflix is fast-tracking this to shoot next year once DuVernay completes her work on A Wrinkle In Time. No word if Rae will be starring in addition to writing the screenplay (though the original tweeters will get some screen credit), but maybe we'll get a few hints or a title around the time Insecure returns for its second season on July 23.
While Netflix has been getting a lot of recent flak for letting their films die on the platform (not to mention the Cannes controversy), this bid goes to show they are interested in film projects that people are interested in and are pretty damn cool. 13th is perhaps the best example of a film succeeding on the streaming service, and its no surprise to see the relationship with DuVernay continue.
Most importantly, Netflix's enthusiasm to make a film built by black female artists shows that they are serious about entertainment with the kind of diversity that Hollywood consistenly fails to deliver. You don't need a massive response like what this saw on Twitter to see that people want movies about, by, and for women of color - and that they want them to be as original as this. It's simply thrilling that these four women will be working together.
