Status: Development Unknown (as of 12/15/16) Release Date: TBA Genre: Western Rating: Unknown Studio(s): Brain Scratch Prods, Mad Riot Entertainment. Director: Shana Betz Writer: Tasha Huo Cast: Zoe Kravits Details: Zoe Kravitz will star as a hitwoman in Black Belle, a Western set shortly after the Civil War. The film will follow a loner/bounty hunter who specializes in revenge killing when a client shows up with information about her mother’s murderer. It takes a turn when she realizes just who the alleged killer really is. Production for the film will begin in September. Source(s): Women and Hollywood; Deadline. Photo Source: IMDB.
Status: Announced Release Date: TBA Genre: Biography Rating: Unknown Studio(s): Panthera Pictures Director: Maryam Myika Day Cast: Kat Graham (Tammi Terrell)
Update: On 10/6/15 Black America Web wrote Castle star Tamala Jones will be behind a Tammi Terrell biopic based on the Motown singer’s tragically short life. According to Deadline.com, Jones will not star in the biopic but will produce based on the book My Sister Tammie written by Terrell’s sister, Ludie Montgomery. Although there is another production in the works produced by and starring Vampire Diaries actress Kat Graham, Montgomery and the Terrell estate are backing Jones’ version.
The as-yet unnamed project will start production in 2016. Although a screenwriter, Sylvia Jahshan has been announced, there is no word on casting. The Graham project is also slated to start filming next year.
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Details: On 5/27/15, Shadow and Act reported that Vampire Diaries star Kat Graham will play Tammi Terrell in an upcoming biopic of the late singer. The biopic is the first full-length feature through Graham’s Panthera Pictures production company.
Over a 12 month period, starting in April 1967, the super duo of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell enjoyed a string of hits, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” “Your Precious Love,” “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing” and “You’re All I Need to Get By”, all of which were some of the greatest love songs ever recorded at Motown Records. In October 1967, Terrell collapsed onstage and was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Sadly on March 16, 1970, at the age of 24, she died of complications from the tumor. During her 10-year career, Terrell appeared as an opening act for Patti Labelle & the Bluebelles and later joined James Brown’s live revue as a backup singer. In 1965, at the age of 20, she signed with Motown Records, but it wasn’t until Motown decided to pair her with Gaye that Terrell became a star.
Principal photography on the yet-to-be-titled feature film is set for 2016. Source(s): Shadow and Act; Deadline. Photo Source: Huffington Post.
Status:Post-Production Release Date: 2015 (Tentative) Genre: Thriller Rating: Unknown Running Time: Unknown Studio(s): 90 Minutes of the Fever, Make It Happen Entertainment. Director:Michael Sean Hall
Story: One family’s long kept secrets boil to the surface while they are trapped in a house as the end of the world seemingly approaches…
It’s Jackpot Sunday, and the countdown is on as California is preparing to shell out the biggest jackpot in U.S. history to this year’s lucky winner: one billion dollars.
Clarence Sr. and his family, the McGee’s, a middle class African-American family, are at home for a BBQ awaiting the big announcement. Clarence Sr. is sure he’s tonight’s winner…just like he’s been every Sunday for the past 10 years. As the lottery numbers are being picked, the telecast is interrupted by an emergency broadcast system alerting the country that martial law has suddenly been enacted nationwide.
A mysterious computer virus has taken over the phones, the radio, and the Internet, replacing every airwave with a ticking countdown that starts at 90 minutes.
Things get even more confusing when the McGee’s brother-in-law, bloody and bruised, comes to them with reports of something coming… Something so horrific that he can’t even speak about what he witnessed; only that he knows it’s coming for them all.
As chaos ensues on the outside, the McGee’s once peaceful home turns into a pressure cooker. Long-held family secrets and lies rise to the surface, culminating into the devastating truth that’s revealed as the clock ticks down to zero. Source(s): IMDB, 90minutesofthefever.com, official site.
Status: Development Unknown (as of 1/6/17) Release Date: TBA Genre: Drama Rating: Unknown Studio: Codeblack Films, Duly Noted, Lionsgate Director: Felicia D. Henderson Cast: Sanaa Lathan (rumored)
Update: On 6/10/15, The Tracking Board wrote that Sanaa Lathan is set to star in the Flyy Girl adaptation for Lionsgate. In February it was announced that Effie Brown, producer of the Sundance hit Dear White People, had signed on to produce via her company Duly Noted. She joins Paul Hall, Quincy Newell and Jeff Clanagan in bringing the Nicole Jefferson-Asher scripted project to life.
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Details: On 7/17/13, The Hollywood Reporter stated that Lionsgate’s Codeblack Films has picked up the rights to Flyy Girl, a popular book trilogy by Omar Tyree. The trilogy, which has grossed more than $30 million worldwide through Simon & Schuster, follows a young African-American woman coming of age during the 1980s. Obsessed with the material world, Tracy Ellison falls into a cycle of gratuitous sex and heartbreak. Source: The Hollywood Reporter.
Status: Script (as of June 1, 2017) Release Date: TBA Genre: Comedy Rating: Not Available Studio:Screen Gems (Sony) Director:Tim Story Cast:Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Hart
Plot Summary: According to Deadline on 8/6/14, the film is an outrageously inappropriate comedy where no topic is off limits in an odd partnership formed between a clever double-crossed mob hitman (Hart) and notorious hit man The Black Phantom, who has been hired to kill him. Source: Coming soon; Deadline.
Status:Development Status Unknown Release Date: TBA Genre: Drama Rating: Not Available Studio: OWN Director: TBA Cast: Octavia Spencer (Mattie Clay)
Details: According to Hitfix, OWN is developing Tulsa, a two-night miniseries set to star Oscar winner Octavia Spencer (The Help). The miniseries will tell the story of the largest race riot in U.S. history, during which 300 people are believed to have been murdered in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921, a story OWN says was covered up for decades.
Spencer will be playing the role of Mattie Clay, a journalist who moves back to Tulsa after a stint in Chicago where she must “face the demons of her past and decide where her future lies.” The miniseries will be executive produced by Nancy Miller (Saving Grace), and co-executive producers are Valerie Woods (Soul Food) and Dayna North (Single Ladies). Source: hitfix.com. Photo credit: The Grio.
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