Another actress with a burgeoning producing career has joined forces with Amazon Studios. Recent weeks have seen Maya Rudolph, Natasha Lyonne, and Natalie Dormer signing first-look deals with the streaming service, and now Oscar winner Viola Davis is joining them, Variety confirms.
The “Widows” star and husband Julius Tennon’s JuVee Productions is already in business with Amazon on Bert & Bertie’s upcoming “Troupe Zero,” a comedy about elementary school misfits led by Davis and Allison Janney. The feature is slated for release in 2019. It seems that the collaboration has been a positive one.
“Amazon Studios is passionate about building a home for both new and established filmmakers of all backgrounds, who share the same vision in telling incredible and engaging human stories,” said Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios “Viola and Julius Tennon’s JuVee Productions brings distinctive, fresh voices and high-quality content to our customers in both theaters and on Prime Video.”
“I always say that one thing missing in cinema is that regular black woman,” Davis observed in a recent interview. “Not anyone didactic, or whose sole purpose in the narrative is to illustrate some social abnormality. There’s no meaning behind it, other than she is just there.” She adds, “I would love to have a black female ‘Klute,’ or ‘Kramer,’ or ‘Unmarried Woman,’ or ‘Annie Hall.’ But who’s gonna write it, who’s gonna produce it, who’s gonna see it, again and again and again?” Asked whether Hollywood is giving more opportunities to women of color, she said, “[If there has been any improvement,] it’s only because the black women that I know have taken it into their own hands [by producing and making change happen. Without them,] I would say no, it has not changed. I still find that we only exist within certain genres.”
Davis will likely be developing just these sorts of sorely needed projects with Amazon.
Nicole Kidman, Emmy-winning “Handmaid’s Tale” director Reed Morano, and “Gone Girl” author and screenwriter Gillian Flynn are among the other women who have signed deals with Amazon this year.
Currently starring on the big screen in heist thriller “Widows” and on the small screen in legal drama “How to Get Away with Murder,” now in its fifth season on ABC, Davis’ recent credits include “Fences” and “Suicide Squad.”
