There are plenty of projects that have been on the burner for so long that they’ve become borderline mythology at this point. For me, the big one is the seemingly abandoned adaptation ofCharles Burns' brilliant, bewilderingBlack Holethat was meant to be a project set up withDavid Fincherat the helm. In that same realm of impatient anticipation isLee Daniels’Pryor, his long-awaited take onRichard Pryor’s life as an outspoken black man and radical comedian.Mike Eppshas long been attached in the role of Pryor and not no so long ago,Oprah WinfreyandKate Hudsonboth signed on to co-star as his grandmother and wife, respectively.
As of a little earlier this year, it looked like the movie wasn’t going to happen because of Daniels' busy schedule but now it’s looking like the movie will finally get made. This is thanks primarily toJay-Zcoming onto the production as a producer all of the sudden, partnering with backers The Weinstein Company to get the movie shooting by early 2017.Varietybroke the news about Daniels returning to the project and Jay-Z coming on board; Jay-Z also put his name behind the exquisiteAn Oversimplification of Her Beauty, one of the best movie of the decade thus far.
On top of Variety’s story,BMDis also reporting that sources close to the project have said that Netflix has also come aboard to help get the production off the ground. It’s unclear how the distribution deal with pan out but one would have to assume that Netflix would get early access to streamingPryorafter its theatrical release. It’s even possible that the movie will have a full roll-out on Netflix alone. Either way, it’s exhilarating to know that the movie will get made and be released, and its place on Netflix’s roster of dream projects would make quite a lot of sense.
