Tyler Perry has had a good thing going at Netflix for a few years now, first delivering 2020’s A Fall from Grace to the streaming platform, followed by both A Made Homecoming and the long-awaited A Jazzman’s Blues both arriving in 2022, not to mention Perry’s role in Don’t Look Up. Now Perry is putting together his fourth Netflix movie, Six Triple Eight, which is about the all-Black, all-female 6888th Postal Directory Battalion from World War II, and it’s been officially announced that Oprah Winfrey and Kerry Washington are just two of the heavy-hitting actors appearing in this feature.
With Six Triple Eight kicking off principal photography this week, Netflix announced who will be making up the ensemble cast. Along with Oprah Winfrey and Kerry Washington, the latter of whom is also executive producing, the lineup of actors includes Law & Order’s Sam Waterston, Thelma & Louise’s Susan Sarandon, If Beale Street Could Talk's Ebony Obsidian, How to Get Away With Murder's Milauna Jackson (who also appeared in A Jazzman's Blues), Tiny Pretty Things' Kylie Jefferson, The Wiz Live!'s Shanice Shantay, Charmed's Sarah Jeffery, Pam & Tommy's Pepi Sonuga, Safety's Jay Reeves, Daybreak's Jeanté Godlock, Raising Dion's Moriah Brown, Ruthless' Baadja-Lyne Odums, The Throwback's Gregg Sulkin and Breaking Bad's Dean Norris. Furthermore, Nicole Avant from Her Excellency Productions; Keri Selig from Intuition Productions, and Carlota Espinosa; Angi Bones and Tony Strickland from Tyler Perry Studios are attached as producers.
Based on an article by Kevin M. Hymel published in WWII History Magazine by Sovereign Media, Six Triple Eight delves into the inspiring story of the 855 Black women who made up the 6888th Postal Directory Battalion. It was on them to sort through and fix the three-year backlog of undelivered mail, and not only did they accomplish this task, they did in half the time given. In the midst of going through the 17 million pieces of undelivered mail that ultimately reconnected soldiers with their families and loves ones upon making it to their intended destinations, they faced discrimination, unfamiliar land, and a war-torn country, yet persevered by following the motto “No Mail, Low Morale.”
Tyler Perry has assembled quite the impressive lineup of talent for Six Triple Eight, and while it’ll be a while until this movie makes its way to Netflix subscribers, this is a great time for this story to be told in a cinematic setting following President Joe Biden signing a bill on March 14, 2022 for the women of the 6888th Postal Directory Battalion to receive a Congressional Medal of Honor. With this kind of story and the actors involved, Six Triple Eight turns out well, perhaps Perry and his team could find some awards attention being thrown their way.
Redirecting our focus on the two actresses previously highlighted, this will be talk show host heavyweight Oprah Winfrey’s first time playing a role in a movie since 2018’s A Wrinkle in Time, where she starred as Mrs. Which. Winfrey’s other notable film credits include The Color Purple, The Princess and the Frog, Lee Daniels’ The Butler and Selma. As for Kerry Washington, who led ABC’s Scandal as Olivia Pope for seven seasons, she popped up last year in fellow Netflix movie The School for Good and Evil as Professor Clarissa Dovey. 2020 was an especially big year for Washington too, as she appeared in the movies The Fight and The Prom, as well as the limited series Little Fires Everywhere, which can streamed with a Hulu subscription.
Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more updates on how Six Triple Eight is coming along, and be sure to look the 2023 Netflix movie schedule to learn what the streaming service will deliver this year on the cinematic side of things.
