Spike Lee is bringing Nola Darling and She’s Gotta Have It back in the form of a Netflix series that will debut on Thanksgiving, November 23, 2017. The series will star DeWanda Wise as Nola Darling, Anthony Ramos as Mars Blackmon, Cleo Anthony as Greer Childs and Lyriq Bent as Jamie Overstreet.
First released in 1986, She’s Gotta Have It was a low-budget film that knocked everyone’s socks off and in the process kicked off Lee’s career. And while yes, much is said about about the play between Darling and her three lovers, a big part of its appeal was the movie’s Ft. Greene, Brooklyn, everyday black Bohemia backdrop, which not only created a turning point for black portrayal in cinema, but also ushered in an independent film movement.
Recreating the film in the form of a series won’t be easy because part of the fun of the original movie was simply the joy of drinking in a movie whose look and feel felt entirely fresh and yet was entirely recognizable to anyone carving out a Downtown-themed creative existence in New York during the period.
If any portrayal is going to be tricky, it will be Blockmon, a character who, following the movie, went on to create legendary ads with Nike and Michael Jordan. As such, there are lots of people who will struggle to accept a Blockman played by anyone other than Lee.
Sidenote: Lee in 2014 said he regretted the rape scene in the movie and said if he could change one thing, that would be it. “If I was able to have any do-overs, that would be it. It was just totally stupid. I was immature. It made light of rape, and that’s the one thing I would take back,” he said in an interview with Huffington Post.
Check out the preview below.
