Sanaa Lathan is the latest Hollywood player to get into the Netflix business. Deadline confirms that the “Love & Basketball” actress will topline “Nappily Ever After,” a Netflix film from “Wadjda” director Haifaa Al-Mansour. Lathan will play Violet, a woman who begins to re-examine her life after an unsuccessful trip to the salon.
Violet Jones has a “seemingly flawless life until an accident at the hair dresser causes things in her life to unravel,” Deadline summarizes. “She starts to put the pieces back together with a little help from a soulful barber and his young daughter. Violet finds the courage to cast off some of the things that she didn’t really need, starting with the perfectly straightened hair, and find a life that has real meaning.”
“Nappily Ever After” is based on Trisha R. Thomas’ book of the same name. Tina Chism (“Drumline”) adapted the novel and Gina Prince-Bythewood, Lisa Loomer (“Girl, Interrupted”), and Adam Brooks (“Mozart in the Jungle”) provided rewrites. Lathan is serving as one of the project’s producers.
The film, which will co-star Ernie Hudson (“Grace and Frankie”) as Lathan’s father, will begin filming in Atlanta later this month.
“Nappily Ever After” marks Lathan and Prince-Bythewood’s fourth major collaboration. Lathan starred in Prince-Bythewood’s romantic dramas “Love & Basketball” and “Disappearing Acts.” She also toplined “Shots Fired,” a limited drama series about racially-motivated police violence from Prince-Bythewood and her husband, Reggie Rock Bythewood.
You can catch Lathan next as a counterterrorism agent in the action thriller “American Assassin,” in theaters September 15.
“Silver & Black,” Prince-Bythewood’s Marvel film about superheroes Silver Sable and Black Cat, will hit theaters February 8, 2019.
Al-Mansour made her feature directorial debut with “Wadjda,” which follows a young woman who tries to raise enough money to buy and bicycle and participate in a Koran recitation competition. “Wadjda” was nominated for best foreign language film at the 2014 BAFTAs. The director’s next film, “Mary Shelley,” is a portrait of the love affair between the titular “Frankenstein” writer (Elle Fanning) and poet Percy Shelley (Douglas Booth). “Mary Shelley” will make its world premiere next month at TIFF.
