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Popular sitcom Girlfriends could be turned into a movie

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(From left): Jill Jones, Golden Brooks, Tracee Ellis Ross, Persia White, (Season 1), (PHOTO:  Paramount Television)
(From left): Jill Jones, Golden Brooks, Tracee Ellis Ross, Persia White, (Season 1), (PHOTO: Paramount Television)

Cape Town - A Girlfriends movie could be on the way, that’s if series writer and director Mara Brock Akil has her way.

The show, which ran for eight seasons, centred on the lives of four friends; Joan, Maya, Lynn and Toni and their everyday challenges as they navigated through life.

However, the show came to an abrupt end in 2008 as it was cancelled a season before it was due to end.

With so many questions still left to be answered about the character’s lives, Mara admits she has a script ready to answer their questions but needs a studio to fund the movie, “Yeah, you can tell any studio in town: If they got 50 to 60 million, I already have the script,” she told Vulture.com.

Mara adds that she wants the movie to tell stories that represent and speak to black women, “We can make an epic story and we can make a lot of money, but me hustling and knocking on doors begging to do this story is not where it is anymore. It deserves somebody to see the value in it and write that check. That’s what it’s about. People often think I have the power.”

“Well, I have a lot of creative input, I know the vision of it, but I need the money. That’s what this industry is all about — supporting artists and supporting storytellers and hearing the audience for what they want and need. There still is a lack of value for what black women want, yet we have proven to be one of the strongest consumers in the marketplace. Yet we still are undervalued about what we want and need,” she explained.

The show’s breakout stars have also given their backing to a movie version of the series, with Jill Marie Jones, who played Toni Childs on the show, telling The Breakfast Club in 2018, “We definitely all want to do it. I think it’s a timing thing and also the legal stuff. You sell a script you don’t actually own it anymore, so it’s whatever CBS and Paramount want to do.”

Tracee Ellis Ross, who has since found success on Black-ish has also expressed her desire to see the show turned into a movie.

Appearing on Watch What Happens Live last year she said, “I would love to, and I’ve been saying that since we’ve finished, but I really don’t know.”

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