Bet You Didn’t Know: Secrets Behind The Making Of “Brown Sugar”

Some describe Brown Sugar as a game changer when it comes to black, romantic comedies. Described as the urban When Harry Met Sally, the film incorporated Hip Hop, professional black folk and a friendship turned love story that we just could help but love. You know the plot. You probably still bump the soundtrack, but we doubt you know these behind the scenes secrets.

Who’s the director?

Rick Famuyiwa. You might not know his name but he’s the man behind some of our favorite films. Including the semi-autobiographical film The Wood, Our Family Wedding and Talk to Me. Famuyiwa, a Nigerian-American, graduated from the University of South California and double majored in Film and Television Production and Critical Studies. Growing up in Inglewood, Famuyiwa found it important to portray a more diverse side of a neighborhood that he felt had gotten a bad rap. Brown Sugar was Famuyiwa’s second film.

Taye Diggs on Famuyiwa

In an interview with BlackFilm.com, Diggs described his experience working with Famuyiwa not just on Brown Sugar but also on The Wood. 

“He’s great. He’s a director I would work with at any point, at any time, on almost any project. He has good taste. He’s classy. He’s very chill. He sets the tone on the set. I never saw him stress out. I never saw him raise his voice. He never chastised anybody. He’s always very chill and he’s good at what he does. He started out with “The Wood” and they made that movie for 5 dollars and now he got a little more money for this. He really does his thing.”

Who wrote it? 

Michael Elliot, the screenwriter behind the film has a story that is entirely different than Rick Famuyiwa’s. Elliot had a rough beginning being a ward of the state, a high school dropout and homeless. He had no formal education but taught himself how to write for the screen by renting movies from Blockbuster. Eventually, Elliot sold the script to Brown Sugar to 20th Century Fox for $250,000. He went on to write Like Mike and Just Wright. Now Elliot is working on the sequel to Waiting to Exhale, Getting To Happy. 

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The idea

Remember Mary J Blige’s song “Seven Days”? Essentially, it was about two friends who end up becoming lovers and try to figure out what they’re going to do and where they’re going to go from there. Just before he wrote the script, Elliot says that a friend of his encouraged him to write one more  script.

“I believe that was God. I was listening to the radio the next day and Mary J. Blige’s song “Seven Days” was on. If you listen to that song, you realize where Brown Sugar came from. She’s singing about seven days of the week but she’s also singing about a platonic friendship with a dude but something changed. On one of those days they made love and she says ‘now what are we going to do?’ I wrote that question on a napkin and that became the end of my first act.”

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The money

The movie cost an estimated $8 million dollars. When it was released on October 11 in 2002. It earned $10 million during its first week and went on to gross over $28 million worldwide.

Sept 11 

Though the movie was released in 2002, filming started in 2001. Taye Diggs said that he and his fellow actors needed a light hearted movie like this to escape from the tragedy.

Taye Diggs on Mos Def

By now, after films like Monsters Ball and Something The Lord Made we knew that Mos Def’s talents expand beyond his lyrical genius. And Taye Diggs corroborated that fact when he spoke to BlackFilm.com about his co-star.

“He’s crazy and he’s unbelievably talented and unbelievably underrated. He’s just what this movie needed. He’s what I needed, someone to play off because he’s raw. He won’t say anything that he doesn’t want to say, but he’s polite. We benefited from him and Queen Latifah. Latifah is hip-hop, she’s not old and neither is hip-hop, but she was there at the forefront. So it was good to have people that are so in the music be in this movie. It gave it some authenticity. I would work with anyone from this movie again but I would specifically love to do something with him and explore that relationship even deeper. There’s a lot going on there.”

Is Sydney dream hampton?

After the film was released we started to hear rumblings that the movie was based on Hip Hop journalist dream hampton. And perhaps it was Sanaa herself that started the talk. In her interview with

BlackFilm.com, she explained how she was able to approach the role comfortably.

I didn’t put much pressure on myself to really to make the character work because I met a woman who’ s a writer and I sort of modeled on her. She was a hip-hop journalist for a while and I realized that she’s sort of like my girls and me. I just thought about bringing myself to it and really try to tap into the passion for the music.

In his book Decoded, Jay-Z confirmed it saying out right that it was based on her.

What did Roger Ebert think?

Roger Ebert, in his review of the film, felt it was marketed to the wrong audience. He says that while it was advertised as a Hip Hop film, there’s not one time where an entire Hip Hop song plays in the film. While I don’t know how that would necessarily make any difference considering portions of classic hip hop is played throughout, Ebert did mention that the characters were more advanced and showed a growth in Famuyiwa’s development since directing The Wood. 

There’s a scene in “Brown Sugar” I never thought I’d see in a movie, where after Reese and Dre have a “final” fight, and in a more conventional film she would disappear forever from the screenplay, but here she returns to suggest counseling and says they need to work harder at their marriage. How many movie romances are that thoughtful about their characters? “Brown Sugar” may be pitching itself to the wrong audience. The ads promise: “The Rhythm … the Beat … the Love … and You Don’t Stop!” But it’s not a musical and although it’s sometimes a comedy, it’s observant about its people. Francine is onto something. They’re all Terry McMillan characters.