Get ready to jump in because one of the blackest films ever is coming. Double dutch can be an integral part of a black girl’s life; now a movie about that very pilgrimage into pubescence is being made.
Universal is developing a double dutch film, based on an original idea from Thembi Banks, who is set to pen the screenplay. Girls Trip director Malcolm D. Lee will serve as producer. The untitled project will follow a coach’s journey with his double dutch team—we’re anticipating that Coach Carter and Remember the Titans vibe, where a coach tries to train his team through trials and tribulations in a rousing montage leading up to the “big game.”
Lee will produce the film through his own Blackmaled Productions. Vice President of Production Sara Scott will be overseeing the project on behalf of Universal. Lee has seen past box office successes with his record-breaking Girls Trip and his most recent hit, Night School, starring Tiffany Haddish and Kevin Hart.
Banks, a 2018 HBO Directing Fellow, is also a co-producer on an untitled project based on child journalist, Hilde Lysiak, for Apple.
Deadline described the film as being set in a “double dutch world,” so I can’t help but equate this to a Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) flick. Imagine an Avengers-level set of double dutch jumpers. If you’ve ever seen a bunch of black girls engage in competitive double dutch, you’d call them superheroes, too.
Bet they’d jump on Thanos’ headass.
And Lee could certainly handle such a large feat, as he’s not about limits, including labeling films as “urban.”
“There’s gotta be different language around describing movies. If it’s a romantic comedy that’s got all black people in it, still a romantic comedy,” Lee told The Root in November, “Urban means city to me. It’s plenty white people in urban areas, too! So like, why don’t they call those urban movies?”
I’ll certainly be bouncing back in forth in anticipation, similar to when someone is waiting to jump into the whirling ropes.