‘Moonlight’ Director Barry Jenkins’ Next Movie Will Be ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’
By Ben Pearson/July 10, 2017 3:00 pm EST
We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.
But fear not, movie lovers, because Jenkins won’t be in the TV realm for long. He’s just set up his next movie: an adaptation of James Baldwin’s acclaimed book If Beale Street Could Talk.
Variety has the news about Jenkins’ developing If Beale Street Could Talk movie, and they report that he’ll be reuniting with Brad Pitt’s Plan B production company (who backed Moonlight) and teaming for the first time with Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures.
Jenkins has been hoping to make this film for years – he wrote the screenplay in 2013, in the same stretch he wrote Moonlight – and he’s since secured the rights from Baldwin’s estate to make it happen. Baldwin’s sister, Gloria Karefa-Smart, issued a statement about the upcoming film:
In this honest and stunning novel, James Baldwin has given America a moving story of love in the face of injustice. Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin’s story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions–affection, despair, and hope. In a love story that evokes the blues, where passion and sadness are inevitably intertwined, Baldwin has created two characters so alive and profoundly realized that they are unforgettably ingrained in the American psyche.
I’m sure Moonlight’s Oscar didn’t hurt, either.
“We are delighted to entrust Barry Jenkins with this adaptation. Barry is a sublimely conscious and gifted filmmaker, whose Medicine for Melancholy impressed us so greatly that we had to work with him.”
Medicine for Melancholy is in my Netflix queue right now, and a Netflix DVD rental (yes, I’m one of those people who still subscribes to the disc plan!) of last year’s documentary about James Baldwin, entitled I Am Not Your Negro, is sitting on my entertainment center as we speak. I admit that I’d probably have a lot more to say about this news if it broke a few days from now and I had enough time to catch up with both of those films. But having seen Moonlight and that devastating Dear White People episode, it’s obvious that Jenkins is a tremendously talented guy who’s able to infuse whatever story he’s telling with empathy and emotion. Any new project from him is worth getting excited about – especially something as momentous as a return to making movies.
