Little Release Marks a Big Milestone for Its 14-Year-Old Producer

(Bloomberg) -- Marsai Martin has three things going against her as an aspiring film producer: she’s a woman, she’s black, and she’s 14 years old.

But the producer and star of Little, out Friday, April 12, is no overnight sensation. Martin landed her first national commercial at five and is best known as the smart-mouthed Diane Johnson on the Emmy award-nominated ABC-network comedy Black-ish. In February, Martin’s production company signed a “first-look” deal, in which the studio will get first dibs on her producing projects, with Universal. 

She was 10 years old when she first pitched the comedic concept to Black-ish creator Kenya Barris and then to Will Packer, the producer behind the hit movies Girls Trip and Night School. During breaks in filming Black-ish, Marsai had noticed that none of Hollywood’s most successful body-swap movies—such as Big, Freaky Friday, and 13 Going on 30—featured black women. 

A Twist on Old Favorites

Revivals with a more equitable take are a popular business in Hollywood, whether it’s an all-female Ghostbusters or Oceans 8, which featured Sandra Bullock and Rihanna. Next month’s The Hustle, starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson, is a remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

In Little, the audience gets a taste of the body-swap genre with a popular, female, African-American trio leading the cast. Regina Hall, a Girl’s Trip and Black-ish veteran, plays hard-driving tech mogul Jordan Sanders, who torments her staff and her long-suffering assistant April (Issa Rae of HBO’s Insecure). She is whirlwind of frustration and anger, a bully to her own employees. One day, a little girl who plays near Sanders’ building decides to fight back and puts a curse on the CEO by waving her plastic wand and wishing Sanders was little again. Somehow, the spell works.

The next morning, Sanders wakes up as the 13-year old version of herself, played by Martin, just as her company is preparing for a make-or-break pitch for a key client. The story isn’t new or surprising—critics have been mixed, with about half recommending the movie according to Rotten Tomatoes—but Martin is captivating throughout the film. 

“Flipped On Its Head”

The lack of opportunities for people of color and women in Hollywood has become clearer in recent years. Activists such as April Reign have highlighted the lack of diversity in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, and research from Stacy Smith’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative has shown that, from 2016 to 2018, nearly 75 percent of all producing jobs across 300 films were held by white men. Only 1.6 percent were women of color.

“This generation of film nerds have something new to relate to, as the tropes of films like Big, Freaky Friday, and 13 Going on 30 get flipped on its head,” wrote Catalina Combs in a review of the movie for Black Girl Nerds. “People of color want to see stories that reflect their worldly experiences and most importantly, see people who look like them.”

Tina Gordon, the director of Little, is further proof of what many of Stacey Smith’s studies have shown: that when women are directing movies, they hire more women. Gordon said she added women of color to the production behind the scenes as artists, designers, wardrobe workers, and hair and make-up artists.

Big, too, was directed by a woman—the late Penny Marshall. But Martin is starting out as major Hollywood studios appear to be committing to more inclusivity. “She is going to be a force in our industry for a very long time,” Packer told the crowd of movie and theater executives when she presented the film at the Cinemacon convention in Las Vegas earlier this month. “It was my privilege to say yes to her.”

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Gaddy at jgaddy@bloomberg.net

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