Lizzo To Play Rock ‘N’ Roll Pioneer Sister Rosetta Tharpe In ‘Rosetta’ For Amazon MGM Studios

Lizzo already has an Emmy and multiple Grammys — is an Oscar next?

Four-time Grammy winner Lizzo will be taking up the guitar to play Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the gospel singer who was one of the first to appeal to rock ‘n’ roll and R&B audiences, in Amazon MGM Studios‘ Rosetta.

The project is in development with Lizzo, Kevin Beisler, Significant Productions’ Nina Yang Bongiovi and Forest Whitaker producing. Natalie Chaidez (The Flight Attendant, Queen of the South) and Kwynn Perry (Tigerbelles, The Burned Photo) are writing the screenplay.

Without Tharpe, there would be no rock n’ roll. Her influence on popular music spans decades and includes Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan and countless others. Inspired by true events, the film will capture a pivotal period in Thrape’s life — one of groundbreaking innovation, defiant passion and secret love. As she shatters musical boundaries with her signature guitar sound, she must navigate societal constraints, conceal her love for another woman and ultimately transform a wedding into one of the most legendary concerts in history: the first stadium show.

Singer-songwriter, rapper and thespian Lizzo also is an Emmy winner. She notched two No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned several gold, platinum and multiplatinum certifications. Lizzo notably made history in 2023 when she emerged as the first Black woman to receive Record of the Year at the Grammy Awards since 1994 for the double-platinum About Damn Time. Prior to that, she shook the charts with the 7 million-seller “Truth Hurts,” which dominated the Hot 100 for seven weeks, becoming the longest-running No. 1 by a solo female rap artist ever. In 2024, the song surpassed 1 billion streams on Spotify.

Along the way, she has headlined her own Emmy-nominated HBO special, Lizzo: Live In Concert, as well as produced and starred in the multi-Emmy Award-winning Amazon MGM Studios reality TV show Watch Out for the Big Grrrls. In 2019, Lizzo starred in the crime dramedy Hustlers alongside Constance Wu, Jennifer Lopez, Julia Stiles, Lili Reinhart, Keke Palmer and Cardi B. She was also the focus of the 2022 HBO Max documentary Love, Lizzo, which provided an intimate look into her life and career. She recently returned with the new singles “Still Bad” and “Love In Real Life,” the latter the title track from her fifth studio LP, which is due this year.

Significant Productions’ mission is to champion and produce culturally significant films and television shows, alongside diversified representation behind the camera. Under the banner, BAFTA-nominated, award-winning producing partners Bongiovi and Whitaker are renowned for discovering talent, including Ryan Coogler and Chloe Zhao, whose debut films Fruitvale Station and Songs My Brothers Taught Me, are produced by the duo; they’ve also produced critically acclaimed and monetarily successful feature films by auteur filmmakers like Rick Famuyiwa’s Dope (Sony), Michael Larnell’s Roxanne Roxanne (Netflix), Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You (Annapurna), and Rebecca Hall’s Passing (Netflix). And more recently, the company produced Erica Tremblay’s Fancy Dance (Apple). In television, Bongiovi and Whitaker are executive producers of Godfather of Harlem and the docuseries Hollywood Black, both on MGM+, and are in active development of the upcoming Amazon MGM premium fantasy series, Rise of the Empress.

Lizzo is repped by Full Stop Management, UTA and Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks. Chaidez is represented by CAA and Jackoway Austen Tyerman. Perry is represented by Jackoway Austen Tyerman. Significant is repped by Cohen Gardner LLP.

via: Deadline

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