The movie Love & Basketball turned 25 this year.<\/p>\n
The L.A.-set romance starring Omar Epps and Sanaa Lathan was a hit when it came out in April of 2000. It\u2019s now included in the National Film Registry<\/a> and in the Criterion Collection<\/a>. And this Saturday, the Academy Museum is hosting a special screening<\/a> of the film to celebrate its 25th anniversary.<\/p>\n But the film almost didn\u2019t get made.<\/p>\n The film\u2019s writer-director Gina Prince-Bythewood says not only did every studio turn the film down, \u201c\u200aevery production company turned it down on top of that. So I didn’t even have a company to maybe believe in it and fight for it.\u201d<\/p>\n Keep up with LAist.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, you’ll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less. <\/p>\n \u201c\u200aI was getting feedback like, \u2018It’s too soft,\u2019 [and] \u2018Nobody wants to see this,\u2019\u201d Prince-Bythewood says. \u201cIt was tough.\u201d<\/p>\n The \u201ctoo soft\u201d criticism came with some unhelpful suggestions. Like, \u201cCan you add scenes in it, like [in] Soul Food where the woman is chasing her husband with a knife?\u201d Prince-Bythewood says, \u201cIt’s like, \u2018No, that’s not this film.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n At at time when Boys n the Hood and Menace II Society were in the zeitgeist, Prince-Bythewood says, \u200a\u201dHollywood is so myopic, and that’s all they see of Black life. […] This was not recognizable to too many in the industry. And so for them, this is \u2018soft\u2019 as opposed to no, this is our lives. This is real life.\u201d<\/p>\n As the rejections continued to come in, Prince-Bythewood kept a list on her refrigerator of all the studios, crossing each one out with every new \u201cno.\u201d Two days after she\u2019d made it through the entire list came \u201ca miracle\u201d \u2014 the Sundance Directors Lab called with an invite. After a table read of her script at the lab caught the attention of filmmaker Spike Lee\u2019s company, \u201cthey were like, \u2018We wanna do this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n But despite that green light, the challenges kept coming.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The basketball of it all<\/p>\n When it came to the search for the lead character, Monica, \u201c\u200aI knew that I had to find an actor who could ball,\u201d Prince-Bythewood says, \u201cI knew the ball couldn’t be whack [because] I didn’t wanna set women’s sports back years. So actors came in and they did the acting audition, and then if they got past that, then they had to meet me on the court.\u201d<\/p>\n Sanaa Lathan came in, \u201cknocked out the audition, [had] great, amazing chemistry with Omar,\u201d but had \u201cnever picked up a ball in her life, and I was like, \u2018I can’t do this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n After a search for another actor who could match Lathan\u2019s performance and play basketball came up short, Prince-Bythewood had to make a decision.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aI really thought about it and said finally, it’s a love story set in the basketball world and realized you can fake a jump shot, but you can’t fake a closeup, so go with the actor.\u201d<\/p>\n Lathan trained with a coach for three months, and throughout the production as well, and ultimately she only needed a double for two shots of the entire film.<\/p>\n SUB: Setting the film in L.A. and making it feel authentic<\/p>\n Prince-Bythewood had played track at UCLA, where she also went to film school, and first wanted to set Love & Basketball at her alma mater, but UCLA said no.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I went to my big rival\u201d \u2014 USC \u2014 and \u201cthey just welcomed us with open arms, which was amazing because I knew I didn’t want to make up a college. That’s when films feel fake.\u201d<\/p>\n