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“A film that has nothing to do with me could quite literally change my life.”
That’s how filmmaker Nina Lee summed up what’s at stake as You, Me & Tuscany heads toward its April 10 release.
In a series of posts on X, Lee said studio executives have made it clear that the success of the Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Page-led rom-com will directly impact whether her own projects move forward.
“1. Met with a studio about my already shot romcom and they won’t buy it until / They see how You, Me & Tuscany does 2. Met with an exec about a romance script I have, they won’t buy it until / They see how You, Me & Tuscany does 3. Go see this film!” Lee wrote.
Her follow-up post made the reality even clearer. “A film that has nothing to do with me could quite literally change my life,” she added.
The posts quickly gained traction, tapping into a long-running frustration among Black creatives: that individual projects are often treated as proof points for an entire genre.
Bailey addressed that pressure directly in a recent interview with Complex. “I feel like it almost isn’t fair for us to have to [hear], you know, ‘oh, well, we’re gonna watch how this one does. And then we’ll green light you.’ Like, it shouldn’t be like that at all,” Bailey said. “It’s amazing to be a Black creator… and I think that even when the goalposts may be moved every single time, we still will persevere, no matter what.”
She added, “I love that about being Black…being a young Black woman. I think that nothing can stop us… Like, her movie is gonna do great, and it’s gonna get greenlit because people want to see our stories on screen.”
Producer Will Packer, who is behind You, Me & Tuscany, also weighed in on X as the conversation spread. “Welcome to Hollywood 🙃,” he wrote, before adding in another post, “Could change a lot of people’s lives. Hollywood has always been reactive not proactive …”
The film itself, directed by Kat Coiro, follows Bailey’s character as she finds unexpected romance while staying at a villa in Italy. It arrives in theaters April 10. But as the online conversation made clear, the stakes extend beyond one storyline.
Lee’s already-shot rom-com That’s Her, which stars Kountry Wayne, Coco Jones, and Emmy Raver-Lampman, wrapped production in late 2024. Now, she says, its future — and others like it — may depend on how audiences show up for a film she didn’t even make.
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