According to Variety.com, Gina Prince-Bythewood (“The Old Guard,” “Beyond The Lights,” “Love & Basketball”) is set to direct “The Woman King,” starring Academy Award-winning actress Viola Davis at TriStar Pictures.
The movie is being produced by Davis and Julius Tennon of JuVee Productions, Cathy Schulman’s Welle Entertainment, and Maria Bello of Jack Blue Productions.
The film is a historical epic inspired by true events that took place in The Kingdom of Dahomey, one of the most powerful states of Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The story follows Nanisca (Davis), general of the all-female military unit, and her daughter Nawi, who together fought the French and neighboring tribes who violated their honor, enslaved their people and threatened to destroy everything they’ve lived for.
“We at JuVee are beyond excited to introduce this incredible story of the Women Warriors of The Dahomey Ahosi tribe to the world. It’s time that they truly occupy their place in history and in Gina Prince-Bythewood’s hands, it will be a gamechanger. This project could not be a more perfect example of our legacy,” said Davis and Tennon.
[Photo credit: Fela Kuti by Leni Sinclair / Getty Images]
The roots of Afrobeat began in Ghana during the early 1920s. When musicians incorporated influences like the foxtrot and calypso with Ghanaian rhythms like osibisaba (Fante).
Nigerian artists later solidified the Afrobeat groove in the late ’60s led by Fela Kuti. The sound is a complex fusion of jazz, funk, soul, Ghanaian highlife, psychedelic rock and traditional West African chants and rhythms.
This playlist features Kuti, his longtime collaborator Tony Allen, and his sons Femi and Seun. Plus The Funkees, Antibalas, Angélique Kidjo, Chicago Afrobeat Project, William Onyeabor, The Lijadu Sisters, and many other originators and modern practitioners of the art.
Enjoy, and don’t even try to sit still while it’s on. Until next week, stay safe, sane, and kind.
According to Variety.com, the CBS network has announced it will commit 25% of its script development budget to projects created or co-created by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) beginning with the 2021-2022 development season.
CBS also says it will target having a minimum of 40% BIPOC representation in their writers’ rooms beginning in 2021-2022. The goal is to increase that number to 50% the following season. The network will also hire additional BIPOC writers on some of their series for the upcoming 2020-2021 season.
“While steady progress has been made in recent years both in front of and behind the camera, change needs to happen faster, especially with creators and leadership roles on the shows,” said George Cheeks, president and CEO of the CBS Entertainment Group.
“As a network with ambitions to be a unifier and an agent of change at this important time, these new initiatives will help accelerate efforts to broaden our storytelling and make CBS programming even more diverse and inclusive.”
News of the commitments comes as the entertainment industry, and the United States in general, continues to undergo a racial reckoning following massive civil unrest sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.
Under former CBS CEO Leslie Moonves, the company had been frequently criticized for lagging behind competitors in terms of diversity and inclusion on both its broadcast network and in its executive ranks. Last year, former CBS executive Whitney Davis published a piece with Variety about the “white problem” at the company at large.
A reboot and reimagining of 1960s-set half-hour comedy series “The Wonder Years” has landed a pilot production commitment at ABC, with Saladin K. Patterson (“The Last OG,” “The Big Bang Theory,” “The Bernie Mac Show”) writing and executive producing. “Empire” and “Star” producer LeeDaniels will executive produce along with MarcVelez via Lee Daniels Entertainment.
According to variety.com, the updated version of the series will focus on how a Black middle class family in Montgomery, Alabama in the turbulent late 1960’s made sure it was The Wonder Years for them too.
The new show will live in the same time period as the original series, which was set between 1968 and 1973. A mini writer’s room for the show will be opened once ABC signs off on a pilot script.
Fred Savage, the lead of the original series, will direct the pilot and executive produce. NealMarlens, the co-creator of the original series, will serve as consultant.
Photo Credit: Oprah (Harpo Inc./Ruven Afanador) / Nikole (James Estrin/The New York Times )
Pulitzer Prize®-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and The New York Times have chosen Lionsgate Studios to be the home for a wide-ranging partnership to develop Ms. Hannah-Jones’ landmark issue of The New York Times Magazine, The 1619 Project, and hit New York Times podcast, 1619, into an expansive portfolio of feature films, television series and other content for a global audience.
As part of the ground-breaking venture, Lionsgate has partnered with Oprah Winfrey as a producer who will provide stewardship and guidance to the development and production of The 1619 Project.
Lionsgate, The Times and Ms. Winfrey will join forces with Ms. Hannah-Jones, who will serve as the creative leader and producer in developing feature films, television series, documentaries, unscripted programming and other forms of entertainment enlisting world-class Black creative voices to help adapt her celebrated series chronicling the ways that the original sin of slavery in America still permeates all aspects of our society today.
Jones’ colleague at The Times Magazine, Caitlin Roper, an editor of The 1619 Project and head of scripted entertainment at The Times, will also produce.
One of the most impactful and thought-provoking works of journalism of the past decade, The Times Magazine’s 1619 Project was a landmark undertaking that connected the centrality of slavery in history with an unflinching account of the brutal racism that endures in so many aspects of American life today.
It was launched in August 2019 on the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the English colonies that would become the United States, and it examines the legacy of slavery in America and how it shaped all aspects of society, from music and law to education and the arts, including the principles of our democracy itself.
Ms. Hannah-Jones created and was the architect of the initiative at The Times Magazine with contributions from Black authors, essayists, poets, playwrights, and scholars comprising a special issue of the magazine and a special section in the print edition of The New York Times produced in collaboration with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African-American History & Culture, as well as a five-part podcast that topped the Apple Podcast charts.
One of The Times’ most widely read pieces of journalism last year, The 1619 Project has been discussed in the Senate, is being adapted into a series of books with One World, a division of Penguin Random House, and is already changing the way that American history is being taught in schools.
“We took very seriously our duty to find TV and film partners that would respect and honor the work and mission of The 1619 Project, that understood our vision and deep moral obligation to doing justice to these stories. Through every step of the process, Lionsgate and its leadership have shown themselves to be that partner and it is a dream to be able to produce this work with Ms. Oprah Winfrey, a trailblazer and beacon to so many Black journalists,” said Ms. Hannah-Jones. “I am excited for this opportunity to extend the breadth and reach of The 1619 Project and to introduce these stories of Black resistance and resilience to even more American households.”
“From the first moment I read The 1619 Project and immersed myself in Nikole Hannah-Jones’s transformative work, I was moved, deepened and strengthened by her empowering historical analysis,” said Oprah Winfrey. “I am honored to be a part of Nikole’s vision to bring this project to a global audience.”
Please see a link to The 1619 Project essays here and podcasts here.
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Matthew Cherry recently landed a deal with HBO Max for a 12-episode season of “Young Love,” an animated series based on the characters from Cherry and Sony Pictures Animation’s short, “Hair Love.”
Cherry will jointly run the series with Carl Jones, who is best known for his work on “The Boondocks” and “Black Dynamite.” Blue Key Entertainment’s Monica A. Young, who produced “Hair Love,” will executive produce the show alongside Lion Forge Animation’s David Steward II and Carl Reed.
Matthew Cherry (photo via Twitter)
“Hair Love” explored the relationship between a father and his daughter, Zuri, as he does her hair for the first time. “Young Love” will expand on the story of the family of father Stephen, mother Angela, daughter Zuri and her pet cat Rocky.
“I am beyond excited to continue telling the story of Stephen, Angela and Zuri and further explore the family dynamics of a young Black millennial family we established in our short film “Hair Love” as an animated series,” said Cherry.
“Couldn’t ask for better partners in Sony Pictures Animation and HBO Max in helping us get ‘Young Love’ out to the world.”
During this time of unprecedented demands of civil rights, our Good Black News playlists have focused on African-American artists during the month of June. But Reggae artists from Jamaica, the U.K., and Africa have long had a thing or two to say about the triumphs and struggle of people of the African diaspora as well.
Reggae came into being in the 1960s as an evolution of the Rocksteady and Ska musical styles. (More on those forms in the weeks to come.) Reggae is a soulful export of Jamaica that expresses in words the pain, struggle, hope, and emotion that is felt by the average person.
Reggae is often marked by its lament-like chanting and emphasizes the syncopated beat. It leans heavily on the use of the Jamaican vernacular and African drumming style.
This collection features a wide range of international artists including, Bob Marley, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Alpha Blondy, Steel Pulse, Hortense Ellis, Bim Sherman, Judy Mowatt, John Holt, and many others.
As Good Black News continues to celebrate African-American Music Appreciation Month, today we get regional. In GBN contributor Marlon West‘s words:
“This collection of New Orleans Funk features acknowledged masters next to some of the earlier artists who shaped the meaning of funk. It covers the period from the emergence of New Orleans Funk in the early 1960s through to the present day.
My third #AAMAM mix offers The Meters, Queen Ida, Eddie Bo, Professor Longhair, Lee Dorsey, Wild Magnolias and many more.
New Orleans is a port town. Originally owned by the French. Many of the Africans who ended up there came from Haiti and brought with them the religion of Voodoo and its drums and music.
The Crescent City became one of the first parts of America to develop a strong African-American culture leading to the invention of Jazz.
This playlist offers the sound of the New Orleans Funeral March Bands, Mardi Gras Indian Tribes and Saturday Night Fish Fries.
According to an exclusive Variety.com report, Magnolia Pictures will premiere “John Lewis: Good Trouble,” a new documentary about the Civil Rights icon and longtime congress member, in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Juneteenth.
The film, which Magnolia and Participant are distributing, will screen at Circle Cinema, a non-profit organization that operates from a theater that traces back to 1928.
The screenings will be free (theaters will be at 25% capacity) and are intended to serve as counter-programing to Donald Trump’s political rally on Saturday. That rally ignited a firestorm of backlash and condemnation because it was originally scheduled to take place on Juneteenth, a holiday stemming from Texas that commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S.
Tulsa was the site of a race massacre in 1921 that has been called “the single worst incident of racial violence in American history.” Trump later moved the date of the rally back by a day.
“Our city is searching for ideas and ways to do peaceful protest of Trump,” Chuck Foxen, film programmer at Circle Cinema, told Variety. “This feels like a powerful way to celebrate the spirit and meaning of Juneteenth.”
As Good Black News continues to celebrate African-American Music Appreciation Month, today we bring you a playlist reflecting our current times. In GBN contributor Marlon West‘s words:
“We are all in the midst of the largest demonstration for civil rights in history. People all over the globe have taken to the streets. 2020 has also brought new songs of protest by many artists including YG‘s “FTP,” Che Lingo‘s “My Block,” Tre Songz’ “2020 Riots: How Many Times” and others.
This playlist features those tracks, plus several hip-hop classics such as Kendrick Lamar‘s 2015 protest anthem “Alright,” Beyoncé’s “Formation,” Kendrick and Bey’s collaboration “Freedom,” “U.N.I.T.Y.” by Queen Latifah, “Fight The Power” by Public Enemy alongside several civil rights anthems from the 1960s and 70s (Donny Hathaway‘s “Someday We’ll All Be Free,” Sam Cooke‘s “A Change is Gonna Come,” Marvin Gaye‘s “What’s Going On”).
Please enjoy. Stay safe and sane out there, you all.”
