Onyx Collective is bulking up.
The Disney-owned brand, which is expressly focused on programming from creators of color and other underrepresented voices, announced Saturday a pilot pickup for a Gabourey Sidibe comedy, tentatively titled 1266, and a straight-to-series order for a multi-party documentary series about Black Twitter. The latter is based on Jason Parham’s widely read 2021 Wired article, “A People’s History of Black Twitter.”
The comedy, which hails from corporate cousin 20th Television, is inspired by Sidibe’s life story. The Academy Award-nominated actress, who rose to fame with Lee Daniels’ 2009 film Precious, will star as Gabby Brixton. In the pilot, Brixton’s life is believed to be aimless ― she’s living with her mom and making half-hearted attempts to become a singer/model. When she’s fired from yet another job, she turns to phone sex. What initially seems like a quick way to make money becomes a life-changing experience when she meets the women who become her chosen family and learns how powerful, profitable and prolific her voice can be.
The project is being executive produced by Only Murders in the Building’s Thembi Banks, Pose’s Steven Canals and grown-ish’s Julie Bean along with Sidibe, who first shared her story in her 2017 memoir, This Is Just My Face: Try Not to Stare. Jill Kaplan is attached as a non-writing producer.
Black Twitter, as the three-part doc is currently being called, comes from Prentice Penny’s A Penny for Your Thoughts banner as well as Wired Studios and Culture House. Penny, who previously ran Issa Rae’s HBO comedy Insecure, is directing the series, which marks his first project with the Tara Duncan-led collective via his overall deal there. The project is said to chart the rise, movements, voices and memes that made Black Twitter a major cultural force.
Penny will executive produce alongside Chris Pollack and Alex Soler of his company along with Wired Studios’ Sarah Amos, Agnes Chu and Andrew Whitney and Culture House’s Raeshem Nijhon, Carri Twigg and Nicole Galovski. Culture House’s Joie Jacoby will run the series and Wired’s Parham has a producer credit.
The announcements come as the Onyx stable continues to expand its slate, with a roster of producers that reads like a who’s who of Hollywood. It includes Ryan Coogler and his Proximty Media, Shang-Chi’s Destin Daniel Cretton via his Family Owned banner, Insecure’s Natasha Rothwell and grown-ish’s Yara Shahidi. To date, Onyx’s output has included Questlove’s Oscar-winning doc, Summer of Soul, as well as The Hair Tales, legal drama Reasonable Doubt and limited series The Plot, among others. Hulu will roll out its six-part limited docu-series The 1619 Project, an expansion of the works of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and The New York Times Magazine, on Jan. 26. Then, on March 10, the streamer adds Onyx’ UnPrisoned, a dramedy starring Kerry Washington and Delroy Lindo.
