Waiting to Exhale, the book about four friends on the quest to find true love, is coming to a television screen near you. “So, WAITING TO EXHALE is going to be a TV series,” Terry McMillan wrote on Twitter. McMillan is the author who penned the New York Times bestselling novel in 1992.
The book was first turned into a film in 1995 and starred the late Whitney Houston, Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine and Lela Rochon. It was directed by Forrest Whitaker and was celebrated for showing the power of sisterhood and granting young Black women the on-screen complexity we deserve. The soundtrack, produced by Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, featured Billboard Hot 100 hits like Brandy’s “Sittin’ Up in My Room,” “Exhale” (Shoop Shoop) by Whitney Houston and “Not Gon’ Cry” by Mary J. Blige.
For the new iteration, Lee Daniels (Precious, Empire) will handle production, while Emmy-winner Anthony Hemingway (Underground, Treme) will direct. The writers are Houston-born sisters Attica and Tembi Locke (Attica recently wrote Little Fires Everywhere.) “I lucked out,” McMillan added on Twitter.