Release Date:3/30/18; In Theaters Genre:Drama/Thriller Rating:R Director: Tyler Perry Studio(s): The Tyler Perry Company; Lionsgate
Cast: Taraji P. Henson (Melinda);Ajiona Alexus (Young Melinda); Danielle Nicolet (Sara); Jazmyn Simon (June); Lyriq Bent (Robert); Kendrick Cross (Kalvin); Katie Carpenter (Carly).
Story: Follows a faithful wife who, after growing tired of standing by her devious husband, gets enraged when it becomes clear she has been betrayed. Source: Movie Insider.
Release Date: April 19, 2014 (Lifetime) Genre: Drama Rating: N/R Studio: Lifetime Television Director: Stephen Tolkin
Cast: Whoopi Goldberg (Viola), Lyriq Bent (Randall), Ving Rhames (Cecil), Mekhi Phifer (Lewis), Anika Noni Rose Rose (Paris), Kimberly Elise (Janelle), Tichina Arnold (Charlotte).
Story:Based on The New York Times bestseller by Terry McMillan. When irascible matriarch Viola Price learns that her next asthma attack will likely kill her, she is determined to fix her fractured family before she leaves this world, from her relationship with her husband to the lives of her four children and grandchildren. Viola must contend with sibling rivalry, teen pregnancy and drug addiction with one child while her jailbird son needs to learn how to be a better father, her granddaughter is in bigger trouble than her daughter is willing to admit and Viola’s estranged husband needs saving from his scheming younger girlfriend. Viola won’t have an easy time bending her loved ones to her will. Source: Shadow and Act. Photo: mylifetime.com
Release Date: 2/16/15 (Made-for-TV) Genre: Drama Rating: Not Available Director: Clement Virgo Studios: Conquering Lion Pictures, Out of Africa Entertainment
Cast: Aunjanue Ellis (Aminata Diallo), Cuba Gooding, Jr. (Sam Fraunces), Ben Chaplin (Captain John Clarkson), Louis Gossett, Jr. (Daddy Moses), Greg Bryk (Robertson Appleby), Jane Alexander (Maria Witherspoon), Allan Hawco (Solomon Lindo), Rick Roberts (General Washington), Lyriq Bent (Chekura Tiano), Stephan James (Cummings Shackspear).
Details: According to Shadow and Act, the novel’s synopsis reads: abducted as an 11-year-old child from her village in West Africa and forced to walk for months to the sea in a coffle—a string of slaves— Aminata Diallo is sent to live as a slave in South Carolina. But years later, she forges her way to freedom, serving the British in the Revolutionary War and registering her name in the historic “Book of Negroes.” This book, an actual document, provides a short but immensely revealing record of freed Loyalist slaves who requested permission to leave the US for resettlement in Nova Scotia, only to find that the haven they sought was steeped in an oppression all of its own.
Aunjanue Ellis stars as Aminata Diallo, while Cuba Gooding Jr. and Lou Gossett, Jr. play Sam Fraunces and Daddy Moses respectively. Gooding’s Fraunces is a freed slave from Jamaica who runs his namesake tavern (Fraunces Tavern), participates in several historical events, and later moves to Mount Vernon to run George Washington’s household. Daddy Moses is Moses ‘Daddy’ Wilkinson or Old Moses, an African American slave, and Methodist preacher in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone. Though blind and crippled, Wilkinson led a band of runaway slaves to freedom in 1776. Also Lyriq Bent is playing Chekura, who, as a young boy, made the crossing with Aminata when she was sold into slavery, is separated from her, and later reunites with her when they are adults, and have a child together.
The adaptation of the novel will be a 6-hour TV mini-series which will air on BET Networks in the U.S. in February 2015 and CBC in Canada on January 7, 2015.
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