While there, people learned a little something about HBCU culture.” “But you know what they get? Dance movies - a genre that was certainly working at that time - so I packaged it as a dance movie. Hollywood didn’t get that movie,” he recalls. “I wanted to tell a story about HBCUs and Black fraternities and sororities. “I had been wanting to do something in the faith-based space, but not traditional,” Packer says, relating selling the idea to his process getting 2007’s “Stomp the Yard” off the ground. Packer - a lover of competition and sports stories like “You Got Served,” “Any Given Sunday” and “A League of Their Own” - instantly recognized the pitch’s potential. The idea started with Antoine (A.J.) Jenkins, then a young executive at Story’s production company, who pitched a movie set in the world of competitive praise teams. The story comes from the writing team of Brandon Broussard, Hudson Obayuwana and Jana Savage - collectively known as Murder Ink - who are credited for the screenplay alongside Gordon. Packer produced “Praise This” alongside frequent collaborator Tim Story (their fifth film following “Think Like a Man” and its sequel, plus the “Ride Along” movies), and has reunited with writer-director Tina Gordon (after “Little” and “What Men Want”). Can Sam lean in and let divine intervention lead her to the promised land of both musical superstardom and a newfound spirituality?Ĭhloe Bailey as Sam in “Praise This,” directed by Tina Gordon. Instead, Sam is forced to join her overeager cousin Jess (a charming Anjelika Washington) and her struggling, underdog praise team (think a gospel choir’s younger, cooler cousin) in the lead-up to a national championship competition. With A-Town as a major hip-hop capitol, this could be Sam’s big break and a chance to collaborate with hitmakers like Ty (real-life megastar Quavo). “I’ve got to be able to make ’em in a variety of ways and I’ve got to be able to think of my audience.”īilled as a “cinematic musical event,” the Peacock movie stars Grammy nominee Chlöe Bailey as Sam, an aspiring musician from Los Angeles whose troublemaking ways cause her father to send her to live with relatives in Atlanta. “Within a 12-month period, I’ve had ‘Beast,’ which is a theatrical film ‘Praise This,’ which is a streaming film another streaming film, which is releasing later this year on Disney+ and then I am going into production, hopefully, this fall on a theatrical movie,” he says. 1 domestically, including “Stomp the Yard” and the “Think Like a Man” and “Ride Along” franchises – is diversifying his portfolio. Thus, the prolific producer - whose eponymous production company has seen 10 movies open No. You’ve got to be malleable and look at your ultimate goals.” “But there are some of my movies that were successful theatrically five to 10 years ago that I don’t think would have the same success today, because it’s a different environment. “I’ve had a lot of success with movies that were moderately-budgeted breakout theatrical hits,” he tells Variety over tea at the Mandarin Oriental in New York City. “Malleable” is a word Packer has found himself using quite often in reference to the current state of moviemaking.
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