Tyler Perry is to write and direct Six Triple Eight for Netflix.
The 53-year-old filmmaker is to helm the story about the only all-black, all-female 6888th battalion in the World War II epic. Perry is also adapting the screenplay from Kevin M. Hymel’s article about the battalion that was published in WWII History Magazine.
Six Triple Eight tells the true story of the 855 women who joined the war effort with little knowledge of their Herculean task, which was to sort through and fix the three-year backlog of undelivered mail.
Facing discrimination, unfamiliar land and a war-torn country they succeeded – in record time – in sorting more than 17 million pieces of mail. Their efforts allowed American soldiers to reconnect with their families and loved ones back home.
Little had been documented about the 6888th Postal Directory Battalion. But in March, President Joe Biden signed the bill for the women to receive the Congressional Gold Medal – the highest honour from Congress.
Tyler previously worked on the film A Jazzman’s Blues and revealed that the project made him realise how much he loved directing. Asked what he learned as a director on the project, he said: “It taught me that I love it.
“I’d always seen making movies as work. But the feeling that I got every day on set was that I love this. Directing, for me, was all about the necessity of just because I wanted to tell the stories. But this one made me sit in. And I was in so much joy every day.”
Six Triple Eight will be the fourth film Tyler has made for Netflix and follows on from A Fall From Grace, A Madea Homecoming and A Jazzman’s Blues.
