Tyler Perry And Doug Liman Teaming Up For THE YEAR OF THE GREAT STORM

First off, this story’s not as crazy as that headline may indicate. Tyler Perry’s not acting in a new Doug Liman movie, nor is Doug Liman acting in a new Tyler Perry film. While I would really love either of those things (especially the latter), this is a different kind of partnership.

Tyler Perry’s 34th Street Films will produce - along with Doug Liman - an Apartheid film called The Year of the Great Storm. Here is a synopsis from Deadline:

The Year of the Great Storm will tell the true story and legacy of Amy Biehl, an American Fulbright scholar who was living in South Africa during the dangerous and violent days of the armed struggle against Apartheid. After Amy was attacked and stabbed to death by a mob of black youths in 1993, her American parents decided to attend the trial of her daughter’s killers. They remained in South Africa and began a grassroots effort to bring about change in the movement. Eventually the family supported their daughter’s killers’ application to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission for political amnesty, and later two of those same men joined the efforts of the Amy Biehl Foundation. The film will paint a vivid picture of a country nearing civil war as it struggled with its national destiny in a desperate fight to end decades of systematic racism.

Sounds pretty complicated. But it could be great as well. Karzan Kader will direct from a script by Johanna Baldwin. Perry won’t be creatively involved, so the chances of this being some kind of awful joke movie are automatically lowered a significant degree.

Honestly, this is the sort of thing Tyler Perry should have been doing all along, especially after the positive reactions he got from his association with Precious. He's not a great filmmaker himself, but he has the money and clout to help great filmmakers get projects off the ground. Hopefully The Year of the Great Storm does great things for everyone involved.