Cleopatra Jones was one the many Blaxploitation movie classics that put Black women front and center of the action. The original 1973 film starred Tamara Dobson as a supermodel by day and secret agent by night, and a 21st Century update to the flick is currently in the works.
Deadline exclusively reports:
Warner Bros is reviving Cleopatra Jones, the 1973 blaxploitation female empowerment film that starred Tamara Dobson as the undercover government agent who used the day job of supermodel as her cover and an excuse to travel to exotic places. The studio has set Misha Green to write the script and produce a film that will present the heroine very much as the female answer to James Bond. Those comparisons were made when the original hit film was released, partly because Jones was so adept at martial arts and drove a Corvette Stingray fully equipped with automatic weapons. In the original, she faced off against a drug kingpin named Mommy (Shelley Winter), with a mission to destroy the poppy plants that were fueling drugs devastating the inner city.
Currently, Green has several notable credits to her name such as being the co-creator, writer, and executive producer for WGN’s Underground, and now working with Jordan Peele and JJ Abrams for the upcoming HBO series Lovecraft where she will serve in similar roles.
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