Image via A24 Films
Zola, the first feature film made from a viral Twitter thread, is out now in theaters. When the Twitter thread first dropped in October 2015, it was clear that the story was about to take a life of its own. The action-packed movie was released on June 30 and the six-year process of taking it from Twitter to the big screen has been a whirlwind. The saga kicked off when a woman named A’Ziah “Zola” King shared the 148-tweet story of a messy adventure she went on to Florida after meeting a customer at Hooters named Jessica Swiatkowski (who was renamed Stefani in the film). The thread was riveting and packed with so much drama that it caught the attention of millions of Twitter users who retweeted and followed the story tweet by tweet. It received such a huge reaction, it became a global trending topic.
It wasn’t long before journalists took notice of the reactions the saga was getting online, and a Rolling Stone article featuring interviews with the people involved in the tale also got Hollywood’s attention. The article was then adapted into a screenplay and production for the film began quickly after. Similar to the thread, the film follows Hooters waitress Zola (Taylour Paige) after she befriends a customer named Stefani (Riley Keough), and they go on a trip to Tampa so they can strip together. The adventure quickly turns from a fun girls’ trip into complete chaos, filled with murder, prostitution, and absolute madness. Writer and director Janicza Bravo was tasked with the responsibility of taking the exciting viral thread from Twitter to the big screen. [Ed note: Bravo co-wrote the Zola screenplay with Jeremy O. Harris, of Slave Play fame.]
Take this look at how Zola went from a hilarious Twitter story about a weekend filled with debauchery to one of the year’s most anticipated films.
The viral thread that started it all
Date: Oct. 27, 2015
On Oct. 27, 2015, a woman named A’Ziah “Zola” King shared a wild thread about a road trip she went on with a fellow stripper named Jessica. She kicked things off with the now-infamous line: “Y’all wanna hear a story about why me & this bitch here fell out? It’s kind of long but full of suspense.” And full of suspense it was.
Zola embarked on the trip with Jessica, her boyfriend Jarrett, and her pimp named Z in hopes of making a quick buck dancing at a strip club––but soon realized her new friends’ trip was about more than just stripping. Zola then faced the dangers of sex work and sex trafficking and had to find a way home from Tampa after realizing what kind of business Jessica was into. After she detailed a series of events, including prostitution, kidnappings, shootings, drugs, and attempted suicide, Twitter users were enthralled by the story, and people began demanding for someone to create a film adaptation.
If you’re not familiar with the story, the thread has since been deleted from Zola’s Twitter, but thankfully, 25 screenshots of the tweets are available for viewing on Imgur.
A’Ziah ‘Zola’ King gets profiled by 'Rolling Stone'
Date: November 2015
While Twitter was the first to take notice of the epic story, writer David Kushner wrote a Rolling Stone article “Zola Tells All: The Real Story Behind the Greatest Stripper Saga Ever Tweeted” that took the story even further. He traveled to Detroit to speak to A’Ziah King and some of the other key players from the story and gave the thread an even broader spotlight. Kushner described the Twitter saga in colorful detail alongside King’s own account of the events, summarizing it all as, “Tricks get turned, a hustler gets murdered, Jarrett leaps from a four-story window. It reads like Spring Breakers meets Pulp Fiction, as told by Nicki Minaj.”
His article caught the eye of people in Hollywood and it became the basis for the movie’s screenplay. During a conversation with Jessica, she said some aspects of the story were untrue, like her having sex for money (instead, she said Zola was the one doing so). Zola revealed to Rolling Stone that she did embellish certain aspects of the story—including Jessica’s boyfriend Jarrett’s suicide attempt and the pimp shooting a guy—for entertainment value, but denied that she exchanged sex for money on the trip.
James Franco was in talks to direct the film
Date: February 2016
It was announced in February 2016 that James Franco was in talks to direct the movie about the wild road trip from a screenplay by Andrew Neel and Mike Roberts, bbasing the project off of the Rolling Stone article. A24 was set to begin production with a $5 million budget in February 2018 with Franco producing, but it was halted and listed as “in development” for some time.
The Hollywood Reporter shared a report at the time that Hollywood was shying away from making movies with overly sexual plots due to the #MeToo movement being in full swing then. In January 2018, Franco was also hit with sexual misconduct allegations after five women accused the actor of inappropriate or sexually exploitative behavior, and he was eventually removed from the project as director.
A24 taps Janicza Bravo as director
Date: June 14, 2018
Collider revealed in June 2018 that Janicza Bravo would be joining A24 as the film’s director. Bravo started her career as a costume designer before she started writing and directing her own short films. She also directed episodes of Atlanta, Love, and Dear White People, and made her feature debut in 2017 with Sundance feature Lemon. Bravo was selected as Palm Springs International Film Festival’s Director To Watch for 2021 for her work on Zola.
Taylour Paige is cast as Zola
Date: Oct. 9, 2018
It wasn’t long before people started thinking up the perfect star-studded cast for this movie—we even took a stab at it. The studio put out a casting call in June 2018 for the title role and it said they were looking for a “Black female, 19 years old. Commanding and sharp. Quick-witted.” The Hollywood Reporter then announced that Taylour Paige, an up-and-comer at the time, was cast as the lead in the film in October 2018.
Director Janicza Bravo said the Boogie actress was meant to play Zola. “I’m at a coffee shop in LA and in walks this girl. I’m entranced and can’t stop staring. It’s the way she sits in her body. It’s agency. It’s self-possession … everything that drew me to telling this story,” Bravo said at the time. “One year later she auditions, and I knew instantly—like, I knew it then: After seeing 700 girls, the one meant to be finally walked in.” A24 also shared a statement about the casting: “Zola is an iconic, iconoclastic role, and Taylour and Janicza are exactly the people to bring the character to life. We’re thrilled to be working with them on this too-real-to-be-true saga, a defining and legendary entry in the deeply American road trip genre.”
The producers waited until they found the title role to cast the rest of the characters. American Honey star Riley Keough was cast as stripper Stefani, who is the one who plans the wild trip. Succession’s Nicholas Braun plays Stefani’s bipolar boyfriend, Derrek. Colman Domingo was cast as a pimp named X, a character that’s based on Z in the Twitter thread.
The film was well-received at Sundance
Date: Jan. 24, 2020
Zola made its world premiere on Day 2 of the Sundance Film Festival in January 2020. The film was praised by movie festival-goers who gave it props for its humor, for being so entertaining, for telling the story accurately to match the tweets, and for the acting, especially from Paige. The film was also nominated for the Grand Jury Awards pre-screening. A24 planned for a wide release later that year, but the plans to have a 2020 release date were postponed until June 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The first trailer for the movie was released in August 2020 and gave fans a glimpse of what was in store.
Sex-trafficking victims Jessica Forgie and Breeonna Pellow speak out against the movie
Date: June 23, 2021
While King was lucky enough to get away from Jessica and her “pimp” Akporode Uwedjojevwe and made it back home to Detroit, two other women weren’t so lucky. Jessica Forgie and Breeonna Pellow met up with Jessica in Nevada soon after her visit to Florida with King. A week ahead of the movie’s release, The Daily Beast published an interview with Forgie who said Jessica and Uwedjojevwe tricked her and Pellow into a similar sex-trafficking situation in Nevada in early April 2015.
According to the authorities, Uwedjojevwe attempted to force the women to prostitute themselves alongside Jessica. Forgie managed to escape from a hotel room where she says Uwedjojevwe sexually assaulted her and she alerted the police. He was arrested in the casino’s lobby and he is still in prison at Nevada’s Lovelock Correctional Center after pleading guilty to sex trafficking and coercion. He was given a 16-year sentence, but according to the publication, he has a probation hearing in July and is eligible for parole after serving only five years and four months for his crimes.
Forgie is speaking out against the movie because she feels it trivializes their experience and “reopens” old wounds. “There’s nothing glamorous about this,” Forgie told The Daily Beast. “It’s kind of mind-blowing that someone actually finds humor in that. This is entertaining and funny to you? What about the reason why he’s in prison? They’re leaving it out and they just make it look like it’s all fun and games. It wasn’t fun and games.” She added: “I didn’t know how many people knew my story, or cared about it. Whatever they’re trying to portray in this Zola movie, it invalidates the whole situation.” Pellow declined to be interviewed but said it was the “most traumatic experience” of her life. “I don’t take this as a joke or lightly, and everyone seems to think it’s just some nonchalant thing,” she wrote in a message to the publication.
The movie finally hits theaters
Date: June 30, 2021
The team behind the viral-thread-turned-movie and fans alike had been waiting for more than a year for the movie’s wide release. While some of the year’s biggest movies were released on streaming platforms and theaters simultaneously as the pandemic comes to an end, Zola is only available in 1,468 theaters. Some fans expressed disappointment while others welcomed the opportunity to watch a film on the big screen again after a year of movie theater closures around the world. And according to early reviews, the action-packed film is a good place to start. The indie film performed well at the box office, kicking off with $1.14 million during its opening weekend, and $2.27 million since its Wednesday premiere.
Zola is now available in select theaters near you.