Gina Prince-Bythewood

Make a new Jedi Order trilogy with Rey training the next generation.

And he says, I would go with somebody like Greta Gerwig, Chloe Zhao, or Gina Prince.

All big fans, yeah.

To direct.

Your powers may be gone, but that does not change who you are.

Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood of Love & Basketball fame.

Idris Elba's in it, Viola Davis, Regina King, Cynthia Erivo, a real who's who of Black Hollywood.

Then this past summer after the movie trailer dropped, Adeyemi posted then deleted a video denouncing the movie, saying she was treated horribly and that she would never see it.

And Fox 2000 originally optioned this, uh, before the ink on the publishing deal was even dry, and then it fell straight into the classic fantasy development trap.

It bounced around, lost directors, and accumulated a suffocating amount of expectation, but now it's at Paramount, and Gina Prince-Bythewood is directing.

What's fascinating here is the distribution strategy.

Consider the date: mid-January.

So the adaptation only succeeds if Thuso Mbedu's Zelie remains the undisputed center of the universe.

And this is where the writing credits are so important.

Tomi Adeyemi shares the screenplay credit with Gina Prince-Bythewood.

That is the ultimate safeguard.

But yeah, that was a big moment.

Um, but I had a few moments last night, um, talking to the Bythewoods, Gina Prince-Bythewood-

Mm-hmm

... and Reggie Rock Bythewood, and them talking about, um, meeting, um, in the writers' room at-

Oh, can't wait for that.

It is directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood with an absolutely unbelievable cast.

Viola Davis, Regina King, Idris Elba.

We have Greta Gerwig taking on C.S. Lewis with The Magician's Nephew, the origin story of the creation of Narnia.

Why do you think that happens, Rob? Why do you think that sort of, oh, I can't speak to this amazing director.

I spoke to Gina Prince-Bywood on Saturday at her event.

And you just go up to them.

You just say, hi, love the work that you do.

I mean, I, I definitely have seen that discrepancy, and I think it's one that exists even for women that are, you know, at the top of their game making incredible films.

Greta Gerwig, I know Gina Prince-Bythewood has had a lot of struggles just trying to get...

She directed The Woman King, Love & Basketball.

I think that unfortunately for women and for people of color in this industry, there still is definitely a long way to go in terms of representation, IP, getting your ideas out there and having them be considered credible and valid and worth making.

I think of other female-led action movies like Atomic Blonde, which could easily be a franchise with a better director.

Honestly, hire Gina Prince-Spythwood because I'm also going to compliment The Woman King, and I think that was a great original action film.

And I'm like, do something with that.

Don't get the Deadpool guys doing Atomic Blonde,

And those of us who have any sort of, like, understanding of just how rich this area is, we just find it, like, lazy, if I'm honest.

The accent thing, I'm not surprised, but to see it, because I don't expect much more from Gina Prince-Bythewood, the filmmaker, 'cause she's done this before.

But the thing that I would say maybe kind of shocked me about just how bad it is, is the fact that it's actually a step down from The Woman King.

Oh.