Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions and Temple Hill are teaming up to develop Blackout at Netflix, Shadow and Act has learned.
It is a film & television event adapted from six different love stories written by six different writers – Dhonielle Clayton (Tiny Pretty Things), Tiffany D. Jackson (Allegedly), Nic Stone (Dear Martin), Angie Thomas (The Hate U Give), Ashley Woodfolk (The Beauty that Remains) and Nicola Yoon (Everything, Everything).
According to the steamer, the project is being developed concurrently as both a series and film adaptation as part of Higher Ground’s Netflix overall deal.
Here’s the description:
Six prolific authors have written six Black love stories all taking place during a power outage on a sweltering summer night. From the perspective of 12 teens with six shots of love, Blackout takes place as a heatwave blankets New York City in darkness and causes an electric chaos. When the lights go out and people reveal hidden truths, love blossoms, friendships transform, and all possibilities take flight. An ex-couple must bury their rivalry and walk the length of Manhattan to make it back to Brooklyn in time to kick off a block party. Two girls search for a lost photograph and find something more. Two boys trapped on the subway come face-to-face with their feelings. A pair of best friends stuck in the NYPL and surrounded by love stories figure out if there’s one in their future. A trio of kids on a senior trip take over a double-decker tour bus as they try to have a little fun…and work out their messy love triangle. Two strangers debate the philosophical nature of identity and wonder if they can find something else between them.
Blackout is co-produced by Higher Ground and Temple Hill and will be their latest collaboration. Their most recent was Fatherhood starring Kevin Hart.
Higher Ground is also the Rustin, a film on gay, civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, directed by George C. Wolfe, , and adaptation of Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West, Ada Twist, Scientist, Firekeeper’s Daughter and much more.