EXCLUSIVE: It looks like there is current experience there Saturday Night Live went very well as Keke Palmer and four-time Grammy winner Sza are set to star in an untitled buddy comedy from TriStar Pictures, with producer Isaa Rae set to star. Rap Sh!t Director Lawrence Lamont will direct from the script he wrote Rap Sh!t Teammate Syreeta Singleton, who serves as the series’ showrunner.
Rae and Sara Diya Rastogi will produce through Rae’s banner Hoorae, Deniese Davis of ColorCreative and Charles D. King, James Lopez and Poppy Hanks of MACRO Film Studios. Singleton is co-producer. Palmer and Sharon Palmer of Big Boss fame are executive producers. MACRO Film Studios comes on board to co-finance and produce.
The project was created at Sony Pictures’ CoCre lab, with plot details kept under wraps. The Lab was a previous contract between ColorCreative and Columbia Pictures to find and train aspiring, diverse screenwriters to develop and write their first studio film based on original ideas.
Palmer and SZA teamed up for the first time Saturday Night Live when Palmer hosted and SZA was the musical guest. This is SZA’s acting debut and the musician had been considering a number of projects as her first and the opportunity to reunite with Palmer was too good to pass up.
Palmer rose to prominence for her groundbreaking role in Akeelah and the bee and appeared in over 25 films and 30 TV shows, including the acclaimed Jordan Peele film NoRoadside attractions Alicewhich she also executive produced, STX’s HustlersFOX’s Scream Queens and nickelodeons True Jackson, Vice President. She recently launched her record-breaking podcast: Baby, this is Keke Palmer for Wondery/Amazon and founded her own digital network KeyTV, for which she has written, produced and starred in various original content, including her directorial debut, the short film Big bossaccompanied by an album of the same name, released in May 2023.
Palmer received a 2021 Primetime Emmy Award for her self-created series. Showed up with the Taylorsand recently made history as the first Black woman to win Outstanding Game Show Host at the 2023 Emmys for her work as host of NBC’s reboot password.
SZA is an Oscar-nominated and four-time Grammy Award-winning recording artist whose major label debut album Ctrl debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s R&B Albums chart, No. 2 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart. The RIAA certified 3x Platinum album received five Grammy nominations in 2018 and holds the record for the longest release of any debut album by a Black female artist. In 2018, she collaborated with Kendrick Lamar on the song All stars for the action film Black Panther. The song received four nominations at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year, as well as a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Original Song and an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song.
Writer/Director Lamont has directed music videos for some of the industry’s biggest artists, including J. Cole, Big Sean, Kanye West, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Jhene Aiko, Nas and Snoop Dogg. His music video for Big Sean’s IDFWU won BET’s Video of the Year and most recently MTV’s Best Hip-Hop Video. Most recently, Lamont directed several episodes of the HBO series: Rap Sh!t.
Palmer is repped by 3 Arts Entertainment, Hertz Lichtenstein, Young & Polk and LUNA PR. SZA is repped by WME for Theater and Top Dawg Entertainment. Lamont is represented by CoCre and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole. Singleton is represented by CoCre and UTA.