Bet You Didn’t Know: Secrets Behind The Making Of “Just Wright”

Where the idea came from

In the “Bet You Didn’t Know” piece for Brown Sugar we told you the story of Michael Elliot, the screenwriter who was once a ward of the state, a high school dropout and homeless. He’s also the man who wrote Just Wright. In an interview with Film Independent, Elliot explains how the idea for Just Wright came about.

“The idea from the movie actually came to me in 2002, Queen Latifah was nominated for her performance in “Chicago” and that night she showed up on the red carpet in a powder blue satin suit and she was beautiful. And me and my friends were watching the show because she was nominated. And all the women in my house were talking about how incredible she looked that night. And one of the women said, you have to do a romantic comedy with Queen Latifah as the lead. And my knee jerk reaction was great idea but that will never happen because Hollywood doesn’t make love stories with women who are physically like Queen Latifah in the lead.”

Even though Elliot didn’t think it could happen initially, he couldn’t get the idea out of his mind and he ended up doing research and found that most women in the country actually look more like Queen Latifah than the average leading lady in Hollywood. He started thinking about films that cast women who weren’t thin and conventionally “pretty.” And he found My Big Fat Greek Wedding. That movie ended up being the most successful romantic comedy in history, bringing in $400 million worldwide. From there he knew what he had to do.

“This is the time to create a love story where a woman that represents most women gets the guy and gets the guy without changing. There’s no dieting in this movie. There’s no dialogue about her weight, her size or anything. She’s a beautiful woman.”