Two of the most exciting comedic performers working today are teaming up for a new film, but in a surprising twist, it’s not a comedy. Deadline reports that Melissa McCarthy is in negotiations to co-star with Girls Trip breakout Tiffany Haddish in an adaptation of the DC/Vertigo graphic novel The Kitchen, which is a gritty crime drama. Yes indeed, the story takes place in 1970s Hell’s Kitchen and revolves around mob wives who end up taking over their husbands’ businesses when the FBI does a sweep and sends the men to jail.
This premise is actually a bit similar to a star-studded film coming out this year called Widows. That movie hails from 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen and takes place in present day, revolving around a group of women whose husbands were killed in a robbery gone wrong and must complete the heist to pay off debts. Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodiguez, and Colin Farrell star in that one.
The Kitchen promises to be unique in one regard: Oscar-nominated Straight Outta Compton co-writer Andrea Berloff wrote the script and is making her directorial debut. That’s a swell development, as normally promising projects like this go to an up-and-coming male filmmaker. Here New Line Cinema and DC Entertainment are walking the walk, and I’m excited to see the perspective Berloff brings to the screen.
Haddish made waves last summer in the comedy Girls Trip, in a breakout role many compared to McCarthy’s star-making turn in Bridesmaids. The stand-up comedian by trade has found herself a hot commodity, and she’s even talking to filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson about potentially doing a project together.
McCarthy, meanwhile, has been vacillating between comedy and drama for a couple years now. She had a swell dramatic turn in 2014’s St. Vincent and leads the upcoming Marielle Heller drama Can You Ever Forgive Me?, but she’s not leaving comedy behind as she leads this summer’s Life of the Party, directed by her husband Ben Falcone.
No word on when The Kitchen starts production, but there’s a third major role to be cast so stay tuned.
