EXCLUSIVE: Legendary comedian Richard Pryor may soon be getting the film treatment, as Latigo Films and Inaugural Entertainment have acquired motion picture rights to Something We Said: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word and Me, a recently published Simon & Schuster memoir from Pryor’s daughter, Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor.
Something We Said chronicles Elizabeth’s decades-long journey of coming to know her father — navigating the complicated terrain between a man who stood alone at the pinnacle of American comedy and the father he struggled to be. The memoir draws on Elizabeth’s recollections — from her earliest memories of her father to her days as a new college professor, when she found herself grappling with the same questions about race and language that he once did.
One of history’s most influential stand-ups, Pryor is known for his fearlessly provocative, socially conscious comedy about race, politics, addiction, America, and his own life. He was an Emmy and five-time Grammy Award winner who received the first Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1998. Outside of his stand-up, he was known for a major movie career, which included roles in titles like Silver Streak, Stir Crazy, and Brewster’s Millions.
The stories of Pryor and his daughter are tied together by an extraordinary discovery: a collection of Richard Pryor’s handwritten notebooks, penned during his relationship with Elizabeth’s mother, containing the raw material behind his legendary routines — notes, figurative sketches, and unfiltered reflections that illuminate the genius and pain animating his singular body of work.
Producers on the feature adaptation of Pryor’s memoir are David Lipper, Robert A. Daly Jr., Elizabeth Pryor and Julie Merson.
Daly and Stordeur Pryor share a longstanding personal connection, having grown up together on the Westside of Los Angeles — a relationship that makes this project particularly close to the heart of the Latigo team. The company expects to announce a screenwriter and director attachment in the near term.
Of the central question at the heart of Something We Said, producer Lipper told us, “Richard Pryor courageously broke barriers that would forever change the comedy world and take it to new levels. We then saw that translated to the big screen with one box office hit after another, establishing Pryor as the biggest comedy star of the ’70s and ’80s. But what toll does that take on family and what is it like growing up as the daughter of a legend who never stops working as he battles drugs and fame? This book and upcoming film will open our eyes to this world that few have intimately known or talked about.”
Kevin Weisberg, CEO of Inaugural Entertainment, observed: “Richard Pryor didn’t just change comedy — he changed the way America talked about itself. Elizabeth’s memoir gets at the private man behind that public revolution, and that’s a story that deserves to live on screen. We’re honored to be part of bringing it there.”
Stordeur Pryor commented, “I am absolutely thrilled to partner with Latigo Films and Inaugural Entertainment to bring Something We Said to the big screen. From the moment I started writing this deeply personal story, my producing partner Julie Merson and I knew it could be an incredibly special movie. This book wasn’t even meant to be a memoir. As a history professor, I set out to write a scholarly treatise on the n-word. But the further I got into my research, the more I realized how deeply entangled this word was in my own life, especially in my complicated relationship with my father, Richard Pryor.”
The author continued, “My dear friend Bobby Daly and Latigo understood right away the depth and nuance of the story’s emotional core — a daughter finding her way back to her father, and coming to terms with his groundbreaking and complicated legacy. Together, we are dedicated to creating a film that honors my family’s truth with absolute respect, dignity, and plenty of my father’s irreverent humor.”
Latigo Films is the genre-focused film label of Lipper/Daly Productions, a company founded by Lipper and Daly Jr. in the fall of 2021. Their first production, the romantic comedy My Favorite Girlfriend, hit theaters in the summer of 2022. Latigo has produced over 20 films since, including this year’s Joe Carnahan survival thriller Not Without Hope, action thriller Neglected starring Josh Duhamel and Dylan Sprouse, and the upcoming actioner The Fix, starring Zachary Levi and Liam Neeson.
Latigo Films was represented in the rights acquisition by Ryan Webb of Greenberg Glusker’s Los Angeles office. Pryor and Merson were represented by Kimberly Lord of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and literary agent Tanya McKinnon of McKinnon Literary.
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