Screenwriter Lena Waithe wanted her 'Queen & Slim' characters to be opposites -- one like Malcolm X, the other more Martin Luther King Jr. -- and then swap views.
“Queen & Slim” began at a party, celebrating my wife Alana Mayo. She had just been chosen as one of the Hollywood Reporter’s 35 under 35 execs. I was there galavanting and having a good time when writer James Frey walked up to me and introduced himself.
He simply said, “I have an idea for a movie I can’t write.” I responded, “What’s the idea?” And he said, very cavalierly, a black man and a black woman go out on a first date and on their way home they get pulled over by a cop, things escalate quickly and they kill the cop in self-defense and rather than turning themselves in, they decide to get in the car and go.”He had another title and an outline in his back pocket, but I didn’t want it. I didn’t need it.
Then my wheels started spinning even more — what if the two leads were polar opposites. What if one was modeled after Malcolm X and the other was modeled after Martin Luther King Jr. and by the end of the journey they will have swapped places. I also didn’t want a sympathetic cop I had to keep cutting away to. I didn’t want someone that was there to track time, and remind the audience our two leads were in trouble. We already know they’re in trouble. That’s a given. I wanted to force the audience to stay with them. You’re stuck in that car too. I wanted the audience to experience the film rather than just watch it passively.
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