Thursday, October 26, 2017

‘Girls Trip’ Screenwriter Tracy Oliver Bets On Black Women, Makes Movie History

With its $100 million-dollar box-office coup, “Girls Trip” achieved a feat Hollywood could not have predicted as films with all-black casts have been generally considered to lack broad appeal.

Expectations were already modest for a R-rated comedy starring Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith, Regina Hall, and newcomer Tiffany Haddish as lifelong college friends who reunite during the Essence Festival in New Orleans.

When the comedy was released in late July, overall summer box-office receipts were slow; by the end of August receipts were down more than 14 percent over the last year. "Rough Night” with “Saturday Night Live” star Kate McKinnon and “The House” with Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler had under-performed.

So the chances of “Girls Trip” (which was produced by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, a sister company of NBC News) becoming the highest-grossing live-action comedy of the summer and the year so far, let alone joining the $100 million club, was highly unlikely. Its box office dominance even surprised one of the driving forces behind the film's success. 

Click here for the full article. 

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