[dropcap]G[/dropcap]irls Trip recently crossed the $100 million dollar mark at the Box Office.
With a A+ Cinema score, Will Packer’s production company has created another film to surpass the $100 Million dollar mark. His movies Straight Outta Compton, Ride Along and now Girls Trip all have been box office hits.
Girls Trip is a hilarious film centering around four Black women who are college friends reuniting for a trip to the Essence Festival in New Orleans. It was nice to see Queen Latifah and Jada Pinkett-Smith back on the screen together for those of us who are fans of F. Gary Gray’s Set it Off.
Veteran Actresses Queen Latifah, Regina Hall and Jada Pinkett-Smith give us a certain sense of familiarity especially for someone like myself, who grew up watching these women on the screen.
Tiffany Haddish is being hailed as the breakout star due to her natural style of humor, wit and beauty. For those of us in the Black community, Tiffany Haddish is known to many for her stand-up comedy and the fact that she is from the belly of the beast known as South Central, Los Angeles. If you want to see a success story, Tiffany Haddish’s rise to fame through struggle and pain is one for the books. (Her book, The Last Black Unicorn, will be released December 5th, 2017).
Malcom D. Lee is the films director, who is known for films such as The Best Man, Roll Bounce and Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkin’s.
Kenya Barris, creator of the ABC hit show Black-ish, is one of the films writers along with Tracy Oliver and Erica Rivinoja.
The success of the film is important for many reasons. There is a common theme in Hollywood that says films that center around all Black cast do not do well internationally and domestically. Due to this reasoning, Black film, actors and projects are often times marginalized for what might appeal to a broader audience which is the dominant society/culture.
As we all know, these are misconceptions and representation is very important especially for marginalized groups.
I am extremely happy for the success of the film and I appreciate those involved. This helps to set the stage for future projects and is a testament that we can write, direct and produce our own films and they can do numbers in the states and abroad.
