In January, OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network announced that it had ordered the network’s 4th weekly scripted series from Tyler Perry, “Single Moms Club,” based on the feature film of the same name, which Lionsgate released in March (it ended up being Perry’s worst performing directorial effort ever, at the box office).
Nia Long, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Zulay Henao, William Levy, Terry Crews, Eddie Cibrian, Amy Smart, Cocoa Brown, Ryan Eggold and Tyler Perry himself all made up the film’s cast.
However, and not much of a surprise, they all won’t be starring in the TV series adaptation, as the cast of the OWN network show, which will be titled something else, has been revealed today.
Via press release from OWN, the new serial will be called “If Loving You Is Wrong,” and it will star Amanda Clayton and Aiden Turner as a couple with a seemingly perfect marriage on the surface, that’s actually in trouble of falling apart; Heather Hemmens and Eltony Williams play a second couple, struggling with their inability to have children; Zulay Henao (who starred in the film as well) and Joel Rush are divorced parents of an eight-year-old girl, who struggle with moving on with their lives, and into new relationships; Edwina Findley plays a mother who’s having to raise her son solo, while her boyfriend (and the father of her child), is away on a relief mission in Haiti for a year; And finally, April Parker-Jones plays a single mother of 3 kids at home and one adult son in prison, who constantly struggles to pay the bills, as her ex, played by Charles Malik Whitfield, tries to take care of her and the son they had together.
The film, “Single Mom’s Club,” centered on a group of single mothers from varying backgrounds (Long, McLendon-Covery, Henao), who are brought together via an incident at the school their children attend, leading to the creation of a support group that helps all of them overcome personal obstacles.
So, clearly, the TV series adaptation is following its own script.
This will be an hour-long drama series by the way, not a half-hour comedy.
This partnership between Oprah and Tyler, which they signed in late 2012, has certainly been very fruitful for OWN, with now 4 Tyler Perry-created shows, helping OWN to record ratings! Maybe not since Shonda Rhimes at ABC has one show creator’s presence (Perry’s) been felt so heavily on a single network.
Perry did say that he’d be taking a break from filmmaking for a little while, so that he could focus more on his TV efforts.