Rihanna and Lupita Nyong’o Teaming for Netflix Movie Inspired by Viral Meme

If you don’t think that social media can make big things happen – think again. A recent photo of Grammy-winner Rihanna and Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o that went viral as a Tumblr and Twitter meme is going to become an actual Netflix movie, directed by Oscar-nominated director Ava DuVernay, and written by Awkward Black Girl and Insecure creator, Issa Rae.

The films is described by EW as a “buddy film,” which Netflix won in a heavy bidding war during the Cannes Film Festival. If the movie is going to be anything like the photo that started this ball rolling, then it could be quite a fun movie, indeed.

Let’s go back through how this all started.

Tumblr Makes a Movie

This photo of Rihanna and Nyong’o hit the right note with social media crowds (Starting HERE on Tumblr) – who then began to to come up with all sorts of fun scenarios or captions for this “Meeting of the Queens” moment. 

After enough noise got made, Twitter users started alerting the two celebs – and then went a step further, by putting together an entire concept for the film – including a director (Duvernay) and writer (Issa Rae). And, since this is apparently how movies get made now, the film kind of assembled itself piece-by-piece, right there on Twitter.

Scroll on to see how that played out. And welcome to Digital Hollywood: where you can get a movie made with the right social media pitch. Or social media joke, in this case. 

We’ll keep you updated about how this Netflix Rihanna/Lupita movie develops. 

The Stars Get Onboard