Hollywood hitmaker Will Packer recently dropped a bomb about the highly anticipated sequel to his mega-hit movie “Girls Trip.” The movie producer has corralled the four stars, Queen Latifah, Regina Hall, Jada Pinkett-Smith, and Tiffany Haddish together to bring fans a part two of the 2017 film that grossed a whopping $140 million worldwide.
During a “Good Morning America” interview with co-anchor Michael Strahan on Jan. 21, he talked about the new movie, his television projects on OWN, and being the first Black person to produce the Academy Awards.
Packer said that the Oscars will have the theme of “Movie Lovers Unite.” The theme hopes to create a through-line that crosses several demographics and brings people together over their love of film. There also are plans for a host of the show for the first time since 2018, when Jimmy Kimmel hosted.
Packer also spoke about his shows like “Ready for Love” and “Put a Ring on It,” which bring people together around love. He added of the show that’s going into its fifth season that it was important to have a show that displayed the intentionality of mature Black love.
“I remember first going on this journey and asking, ‘How can we make it different?’ ” Packer said. “It is African Americans all over thirty, and are of a certain age. Some of them have been married. Some of them have kids. At that point in your life, you kind of know what you want. It actually helps to focus the attention on that other person in a different way. These are very intentional people.”
He continued, “Now, that doesn’t mean there is not a lot of drama.” The drama was something with which Oprah Winfrey, the owner of the OWN network where the show airs, was concerned. She told him, according to Packer, “Don’t have no mess on my network.”
He promised not to. Now the show, which he says is a little messy, is one of the top shows on the network.
A little drama, a little messiness, and a lot of laughter are ingredients for a couple of his projects, especially the blockbuster “Girls Trip.”
In 2017, “Girls Trip” took America by storm. The film featured the textured stories of four college friends, called the “Flossy Posse,” who reunited during the Essence Festival for a girls’ trip. The female-led cast secured $31 million the first week it opened in theaters and $20 million the second week. While the leads were all Black women, with support from actors Larenz Tate and Kofi Siriboe, the appeal crossed racial boundaries. Reports state that a little over half of those who purchased tickets to see the movie were Black viewers, 19 percent of the viewers were white, 17 percent were Hispanic viewers and 3 percent were Asian viewers.
Within months after it hit the big screen, people were asking for a sequel. In 2017, Packer told Vulture magazine that it was a daunting task to break a comedy in theaters.
“The only thing harder than opening a studio comedy today is opening a studio comedy sequel,”. he said. “That’s the next challenge. I love our team. If anybody can do it, we can do it.”
Five years later, when asked about the sequel by Strahan, he said, “I think that the time is actually right, and this is something that I will tell you and break right now at GMA: the ‘Girls Trip 2’ sequel, we are underway.”
He continued, “We are absolutely in the stages, the ladies are in, I just talked to the director. Now, it’s just about what kind of trip do we take? Post-pandemic. All our favorite crazy ladies. What do we do with them? That’s what we have to figure out.”
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