Along with being one of the bigger movie stars in the world, Michael B. Jordan is making waves as a producer. His Outlier Society banner has fingers in many pies, including an adaptation of Rena Barron‘s Kingdom Of Souls trilogy, a big screen version of Black Leopard, Red Wolf, a monster movie with Kong: Skull Island director Jordan Vogt-Roberts, and a drama at Amazon titled Middle West.
And in addition to that, the banner has pledged to adopt the inclusion rider, a provision in a contract that guarantees a certain level of diversity in casting and production staff, which became widely known during Frances McDormand‘s acceptance speech at the 2018 Oscars. So it’s no surprise that the deals keep coming, and the latest is with HBO Max.
Jordan and Alana Mayo are developing a comedy titled Fashionably Black for the streaming service. Christa Gatewood and Robin Thede (A Black Lady Sketch Show) are writing the script.
The film is set in the world of haute couture, and revolves around viral sensation Zoe Bankole who, after becoming the industry’s first and only black female creative director for a French haute couture house, must contend with short deadlines, petty rivals and attempts at whitewashing her style in order to create the collection of her dreams.
This is a pretty timely project considering recent accusations of appropriation and racism towards certain fashion houses.
After Dior and Gucci were each criticised this year – the former for appropriating Native American imagery for a fragrance, the latter for a blackface turtle neck – Prada hired Ava DuVernay to head their Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council. Gucci followed suit by hiring Dapper Dan in a similar role.
Considering all that, Fashionably Black should be very timely and interesting. That relevance should lead to a big marketing push by HBO Max when the streaming service debuts in 2020.
Outlier Society is about to head into the Oscar race with their first big feature, Just Mercy, which stars Jordan and Jamie Foxx, and is based on the memoir by attorney and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson.
#Peace.Love.FashionablyBlack
