Key Takeaways
- Netflix confirmed that Whoopi Goldberg, Jenifer Lewis, Vanessa Williams, and Vivica A. Fox will star in the comedy Women Like Us, directed by Tasha Smith.
- The story centers on a recently widowed woman whose anniversary weekend in the Hamptons prompts reflection on grief, marriage, and long-term friendships.
- Michelle and Barack Obama's Higher Ground is executive producing as the film prepares to begin production in New York City this fall.
Hollywood’s Black trailblazers and leading ladies are coming together for Tasha Smith’s Women Like Us. On Monday (July 27), Netflix announced that Whoopi Goldberg, Jenifer Lewis, Vanessa Williams, and Vivica A. Fox will all star in the upcoming comedy, which is slated to begin production in New York City during the fall.
Smith — whom we recently saw in the first teaser for another Netflix project we can’t wait to watch, Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Again? — will direct the film from an original script by Ali Kinney, with Tracy Oliver providing additional writing. Meanwhile, Michelle Obama will executive produce via Higher Ground, the production and media company she co-founded with Barack Obama, while Poppy Hanks will do the same for MARCO Film Studios.
According to the synopsis, “When a recently widowed woman is dragged to the Hamptons by her lifelong best friends and sister on what should have been her 30th anniversary, the weekend becomes a reckoning, with grief, with marriage, with the sisterhood that’s carried them throughout the years, and with the realization that dreams don’t have an expiration date.”
What Netflix and the Obamas' Higher Ground are working on alongside ‘Women Like Us’
Women Like Us builds on the already stellar list of collaborations Netflix and Higher Ground, Michelle and Barack Obama’s media company, have in the works. Last year, the streaming giant ordered a television adaptation of S.A. Cosby’s “All the Sinners Bleed,” with production later beginning that November in Atlanta.
"I’m incredibly excited as we stand on the precipice of starting this amazing journey,” Cosby said around that time. “I’m also incredibly honored that Netflix, Higher Ground, and Amblin believe in my work and have given me the greatest opportunity a writer can have — to see your world made real.”
Higher Ground also has a hand in the upcoming Graham Moore-written “The Altruists,” plus a mother-daughter comedy starring Julianne Moore that was announced in May.
Inside Tasha Smith’s meteoric 2026 on both sides of the camera
It goes without saying, but Smith is having yet another incredible year. Outside of the aforementioned Women Like Us and Why Did I Get Married Again?, she also took the director’s chair for ’Tis So Sweet, which is expected to premiere on Netflix before the end of 2026. Taraji P. Henson and Joey Bada$$ will portray Lenore Lindsey and Jo-Vaughn Virginie Scott, respectively, in the faith-based drama.
We’ll obviously be on the edge of our seats as more details about Women Like Us come out, but for now, the cast and creative team attached to it are already exciting enough on their own.