Whoopi Goldberg, Jenifer Lewis, Vanessa Williams and Vivica A. Fox are heading to the Hamptons. Netflix has announced Women Like Us, an original comedy following a recently widowed woman whose lifelong best friends and sister whisk her away on what should have been her 30th wedding anniversary. What starts as a getaway becomes a heartfelt reckoning with grief, marriage and the sisterhood that has carried them through the years, alongside the realization that dreams do not have an expiration date.
Tasha Smith directs from an original screenplay by Ali Kinney with writing from Tracy Oliver. Smith, whose directing credits include Bel-Air, Harlem, Mayor of Kingstown and Survival of the Thickest, continues to build one of the most impressive directing resumes in the business. Kinney’s writing credits include Ginny & Georgia and Love Life, while Oliver is known for Girls Trip and The Blackening.
Goldberg is known for The Color Purple and Sister Act, Lewis for What’s Love Got to Do with It and Black-ish, Williams for Ugly Betty and the Broadway production of The Devil Wears Prada: The Musical and Fox for Set It Off, Kill Bill and most recently Amazon MGM’s Is God Is.
The film is produced by MACRO Film Studios and Higher Ground, the production company founded by Barack and Michelle Obama, marking the first collaboration between the two companies. Michelle Obama executive produces for Higher Ground alongside Charles D. King for MACRO. James Lopez and Poppy Hanks produce for MACRO alongside Anikah McLaren and Mark R. Wright for Higher Ground. Other upcoming Netflix projects from the partnership include the series All the Sinners Bleed and The Altruists.
Production begins this fall in New York City.