HBO is planning a TV show based on one of the year’s most critically-acclaimed web series. Brown Girls, directed by Sam Bailey and written by Fatimah Asghar, is coming to premium cable thanks to a deal with HBO and producers 3Arts and MXN Entertainment.
The Brown Girls web series stars Nabila Hossain and Sonia Denis as two friends who must grapple with themes like race, gender, love, and sexuality in modern-day Chicago. The series, which was elegantly shot and carefully crafted, earned plenty of praise upon its February 2017 arrival (including some from us), and the HBO deal will allow it to reach a larger audience.
Though Brown Girls is stepping up to a longer format, its creators plan for it to continue to address the same topics it touched upon during its initial run. Asghar explained her goals for the HBO show in an interview with Elle:
The web series is a small, small slice into the potential of the show. I want [the TV show] to be very Chicago-focused and queer folks of color–focused. And to have women of color and queer people of color be the protagonists and the antagonists in their own story. That’s very important to me. I want to grow the show and make it more complicated and more nuanced. Tonally, we’re trying to carry over the balance between comedy and those serious, weighted moments. The people of Brown Girls are not caricatures.
Brown Girls will not be the first series to hop from the web to HBO. The premium cable channel has also adapted Vimeo standout High Maintenance for its viewers and has teamed up with Misadventures of an Awkward Black Girl creator Issa Rae for Insecure. Both the TV version of High Maintenance and Insecure generated positive reviews after premiering last year.
An exact premiere date for HBO’s take on Brown Girls has not yet been announced.
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