New Hollywood Podcast: ‘Zola’ Director Janicza Bravo Talks Adapting One Of The Wildest Viral Social Media Moments In History

The biblical story of Jesus is considered by many “the greatest story ever told”. In fact, it is so much so that there was a whole movie about the big J titled The Greatest Story Ever Told. Well, if there were a Twitter equivalent of the greatest story ever told, it would definitely be the Janicza Bravo-directed Zola (opening in theaters June 30).

The synopsis of the A24 film based on the real-life tweets from A’Ziah-Monae “Zola” King that captivated the world reads: “Y’all wanna hear a story about why me & this bitch here fell out? It’s kind of long but full of suspense.”

Bravo co-wrote the film with Jeremy O. Harris and the pair used the aforementioned epic viral 148-Twitter thread as well as David Kushner’s Rolling Stone article “Zola Tells All: The Real Story Behind the Greatest Stripper Saga Ever Tweeted” — and it is an epic saga indeed.

The story follows Zola (Taylour Paige), a Detroit waitress, who befriends Stefani (Riley Keough) while at work. Stefani seduces Zola to join a weekend of dancing and partying in Florida. Sounds fun, right? At first, the glamorous trip of “hoeism” is fun and then it just spirals into a 48-hour journey involving a nameless pimp, an idiot boyfriend, some Tampa gangsters and other unexpected adventures in this wild, see-it-to-believe-it tale.

Bravo stopped by Deadline’s New Hollywood Podcast to take us on a Zola journey and how the Twitter thread presented a new kind of narrative for film. Listen to the episode below.