ATLANTA — It was the romantic comedy starring Eddie Murphy that has become a classic.
One of America’s first movies filled with a successful black utopia.
Now, nearly three decades later, producers Lena Waithe and Ben Cory Jones are filming that utopia right here in Atlanta.
“Boomerang” is back, this time in the form of a show about the lives of the children from the popular movie.
The A-Scene’s Francesca Amiker got an exclusive set visit with the cast and spoke with the mega-producers.
“When I saw ‘Boomerang’ as a kid it made me feel sexy and cosmopolitan and educated and it was a fancy world that was all black,” Jones said. “We really wanted to re-create the same vibe that movie created but also keep it young and fresh.”
“Boomerang” is a half-hour subversive, smart, serialized comedy, fueled by romance, friendship, gender politics, love and of course, sex.
The story picks up roughly twenty-five years after the original movie, and centers on the offspring of the iconic main characters.
“I did a lot of writing on it which I wasn’t expecting but I worked with a lot of young writes and I definitely stepped in to make sure everything was as it should be but I think the best thing was working with this cast and working with these dynamic directors as well,” Jones said.
Imagine a world where Marcus Graham and Angela Lewis (Eddie Murphy and Halle Berry) walked off into the sunset – got married and had a daughter, Simone, and Jaqueline Broyer (Robin Givens) went on with her life and had a son, Bryson. The series follows these childhood friends as adults who are looking to make their own mark as marketing professionals, while navigating their feelings for each other.
“This is young people of color getting together to make a TV show about the millennial experience right now,” Waithe said. “Because this is where young black professional people arrive and live and love and all that good stuff.”
“Once we found out that we had it, we watched the movie every day for like seven days straight. I just want to be that real strong black comedy that was so positive at the same time,” Tequan Richmond said.
‘As opposed to my role one, 'Atlanta' (on FX), where I play a rapper, on this role I play a preacher and it’s exciting for me because people see me at a party or in the streets and they know that I am not court county but then they’ll think, hey, do you wrap But after this role they’ll see me as a skilled actor who has been putting that work in,” RJ Walker said.
“I worked as a counselor at a group home for the last four years and a property manager. I’m a struggling actor trying to get on so when I found out I looked this huge job it was amazing to me. It was life-changing,” Leland Martin said.
Cast and crew really enjoyed the southern hospitality Atlanta has to offer behind the scenes.
“You guys have so much hospitality. And you guys have horrible traffic here,” Richmond said.
“Atlanta is the new black renaissance similar to the way the Harlem Renaissance was in the 1920s. I think we’re having that in Atlanta in like 2018 and 2019 so Atlanta is the perfect backdrop for us,” Jones said.
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