From Meme to Movie: Rihanna, Lupita Nyong’o Project in the Works at Netflix

The internet can giveth and taketh away. Today, it did the former.

Rihanna and Lupita Nyong’o are in talks to co-star in a Netflix movie from director Ava DuVernay, with Insecure creator Issa Rae in talks to write.

This perfectly packaged project didn’t start at an agency or a production company but came from the Twitter hive mind. Last month, Twitter user @1800SADGAL posted an image of the Oscar and Grammy winners sitting front row at a 2014 Miu Miu fashion show with the caption, “Rihanna looks like she scams rich white men and lupita is the computer smart best friend that helps plan the scans [sic].” The post went viral — typo and all — with other users suggesting DuVernay and Rae should board the then-hypothetical film.

Netflix acquired the project out of the Cannes Film Festival, and DuVernay went back to where it all began (Twitter) to confirm the news. 

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This isn’t the first time production has been spurred by online demand. Internet fervor is also responsible for getting the long-gestating Deadpool movie made after supposedly leaked footage ended up online, prompting public outcry for the movie.

The four women would have to fit the Netflix feature in to their already packed schedules.

Next up for Rihanna is Luc Besson’s summer tentpole Valerian, after which she will no doubt be featured in a great team-building montage in female-fronted Ocean’s 8, while Nyong’o is set to reprise her motion-capture role of Maz Kanata in December’s The Last Jedi and the subsequent Episode IX and will also be seen in Marvel’s Black Panther.

Duvernay, fresh off an awards season run for her doc The 13th, is in post on the Disney adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, and Rae is gearing up for the second season of her HBO series Insecure.

See the exchange that started everything below.

I’m down if you are @rihanna https://t.co/vwHBWeCbFZ

— Lupita Nyong’o (@Lupita_Nyongo) April 21, 2017

I’m in Pit’z https://t.co/Kz0o3lBEmL

— Rihanna (@rihanna) April 23, 2017

@MikelleStreet @rihanna Lights set. Camera’s up. Ready to call action for these #queens.

@dvrrxll @rihanna pic.twitter.com/XG2WMribGJ

— Issa Rae (@IssaRae) April 23, 2017