Netflix is committed to securing bags for its strong Black leads. Halle Berry’s directorial debut in the MMA-themed movie Bruised is finally getting a new home after premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival this weekend.
And its coming with a pretty hefty price tag. The streaming giant is reportedly paying nearly $20 million, according to Variety, to bring the boxing drama into our homes.
Berry, who in addition to directing the film, also stars as an MMA fighter attempting to return to glory both as an athlete and as a mother.
“I am speechless,” Berry tweeted. “Thank you @netflix for believing in my vision, cannot wait for y’all to finally see #BruisedTheMovie.”
Berry leads the project both in front of and behind the camera, playing a disgraced MMA fighter named Jackie Justice, who finds herself in a heated contest with an up-and-coming foe on the martial arts scene while grappling with a custody battle for her six-year-old son.
“I didn’t want to stop because I had prepared for so long,” Berry said about the film for Variety‘s TIFF preview issue. “We had rehearsed; we were ready. So my mind, my director’s mind, was just — keep going. And I compartmentalized that, and I just kept going: ‘I’m not going to stop. I’ve come too far. I’m going to act as if this isn’t hurting. I’m going to will myself through it.’ And so we did.”
The Oscar winner told TIFF that the movie’s story was important to her because she “so deeply related to it.”
“I relate to being an underdog, being a Black woman,” she said. “You might imagine that the struggle of surviving and achieving and accomplishing has always been one that I’ve fought since I can remember. So right away, the story touched me.”
There’s no word on when Bruised will premiere on Netflix, but we’ll be watching when it does.
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