Obama Romance Movie In the Works — and Searching for Its Young Barack
The future President and First Lady on their wedding day in October 1992
By Jen Yamato
The White House legend that is Barack and Michelle Obama’s romance is heading to the screen. Southside With You, a drama in the vein of Before Sunrise,
chronicles the summer 1989 afternoon when the future President of the
United States of America wooed his future First Lady on an epic first
date across Chicago’s South Side. Get On Up’s Tika Sumpter will play Michelle Obama (née Robinson), while the search is on to cast the young Barack.
As Presidential lore has it, the
date took some convincing. Obama, then an idealistic first-year Harvard
Law student, took a summer job as an associate at Chicago law firm
Sidley Austin where he fell for lawyer Michelle Robinson, his younger
boss. Southside With You spans the day she agreed to go out
with him when the two visited the Art Institute, took a long walk, and
caught a showing of Spike Lee’s new film, Do The Right Thing. They were married in 1992.
Richard Tanne (Worst Friends, The Roman)
is helming the indie feature from his own screenplay, and former Warner
Independent exec Tracey Bing and Columbia Pictures alum Stephanie
Allain (Hustle & Flow, Beyond the Lights) are producing for
Allain’s Homegrown Pictures. The project originated with Tanne and
Sumpter, who developed the script together and will executive produce.
Filming is set to begin in July on location in Chicago.
“I took her to this new movie
that everybody was talking about, directed by a guy that not that many
people had heard of, but it was supposed to be pretty good,” Obama
recalled during the film’s 25th anniversary celebration this summer. The
site of the Obamas’ first kiss – curbside, outside a Baskin-Robbins in
Chicago’s Hyde Park – was commemorated with a city plaque in 2012.
“Stephanie and I are excited to
produce this smart and timeless film that sheds light on one of the
great love stories of our time,” said Bing. “Richard really captures the
essence of that romantic connection between Barack and Michelle that is
so evident in the way that they look at each other. We are looking
forward to finding the perfect Barack.”
