Pam Grier is keeping “Foxy Brown” timeless.
The actress announced during “The Jennifer Hudson Show” that her beloved 1974 Blaxploitation film is receiving a stage musical adaptation. Grier’s life story, including her breakout role in “Foxy Brown,” will also be captured in a seven-part limited series.
“We’re going to be doing ‘Foxy Brown’ also as a musical and so not only as a film,” Grier said. “A major studio has optioned it to do ‘Foxy: My Life in Three Acts.’ It can’t be a seven-hour movie but it’s going to be a limited series, like the series I’m promoting today, ‘Them.’ It’s seven-episodes shot, like a film, of my life with Richard Pryor, Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar], and Freddie Prince. I’m so humbled by it.”
Grier’s 2010 memoir is also titled “Foxy: My Life in Three Acts,” with the actress previously teasing a feature biopic adaptation.
During her “Jennifer Hudson Show” appearance, Grier reflected on performing her own stunts for “Foxy Brown.”
“I didn’t have a stunt woman. That’s why I have some injuries,” she said. “It was very important to be authentic because now I’m responsible for teaching a patriarchal society that a woman could be a martial artist, that could stand up to aggression. And I didn’t have a stunt double, so what happened was I got hurt. I said, ‘I can’t do this anymore. I really need a stunt double which will make us look real and authentic.’ Bob Miner decided to find a woman who could ride horses and swim and be courageous. JD Davis, she made me look good.”
Grier added of stunt people in general, “Without them, there is no us. And without the audience, there is no us. It is a collective process.”
“Foxy Brown” recently received a theatrical re-release courtesy of Netflix through the streamer’s Milestone Movies campaign. Back in 2016, “Empire” scribes Malcolm Spellman and Ben Watkins were slated to adapt “Foxy Brown” into a TV series with Meagan Good taking on the title role originated by Grier. The series never was released.
Grier previously told Fox News in 2022 that she at first thought “Foxy Brown” would be her swan song as an actress. “When I did that film, I wasn’t sure I was going to continue making films,” Grier said. “I missed science, which was a part of my life as a child. I just didn’t know there was an audience for me. But it turned out I developed an audience. It wasn’t just women, but also artists and filmmakers who loved to see a woman walk in a man’s shoes and be viewed as strong, combative. Here was a woman who freely expressed herself in a way that wasn’t portrayed…I come from the Black West, from women who are wholesome, but fierce. I wanted to bring that into my work. I lassoed people in and it opened the floodgates.”
