Paramount Players Movie ‘On The Come Up’ From ‘Succession’ Emmy Nominee Sanaa Lathan To Make TIFF World Premiere

Paramount/Erika Doss

The feature adaptation of Angie Thomas’ bestseller On the Come Up is making its world premiere at the 47th Toronto Film Festival.

The pic reps the feature directorial debut from Sanaa Lathan, who received her first Emmy nomination for Succession yesterday in the Guest Actress Drama Series category. Lathan plays Lisa Arthur on the HBO show, which notched 25 Emmy noms, the most for any TV series this year.

Deadline first told you about Lathan directing On the Come Up. The pic follows Bri, a 16-year-old gifted rapper, who attempts to take the battle rap scene by storm in order to lift up her family and do right by the legacy of her father – a local hip hop legend whose career was cut short by gang violence. But when her first hit song goes viral for all the wrong reasons, she finds herself torn between the authenticity that got her this far and the false gangsta persona that the industry wants to impose upon her.

The movie stars Jamila C. Gray, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Lil Yachty, Mike Epps, with Lathan and Method Man, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Justin Martin, Titus Makin, Michael Cooper Jr. and GaTa.

Thomas is the author of The Hate U Give, which was turned into the 2018 Fox 2000 motion picture. That movie also made its world premiere at Toronto.

Lathan was Tony-nominated in 2003 for her Broadway performance in A Raisin in the Sun in the Best Featured Actress in a Play category.

Her short film Leap, which she directed, part of With/In, a film anthology shot during lockdown, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last year.

Lathan’s acting credits include The Affair, Native Son, The Twilight Zone, plus Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion, Jon Chu’s Now You See Me 2 and American Assassin opposite Michael Keaton.

The festival runs Sept. 8-18.