Hollywood film producers, Carlota Espinosa and Keri Selig, talk to SHIFTER about working with Tyler Perry to bring their labor of love, The Six Triple Eight. to the big screen.
“When I first read the soon to be published article about the Six Triple Eight, it was unfathomable to me that such a remarkable story, filled with courage and resilience, had remained in the shadows.” -Carlota Espinosa
After Barbie and Oppenheimer went head-to-head in 2024, this year marked another highly competitive awards season with Anora, Conclave, The Substance, The Brutalist, and Emilia Pérez competing in many categories. But one of the films which slipped under the radar this awards season was The Six Triple Eight, which tells the real life story of 855 Black women who served in the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion of the US Women’s Army Corps during World War II. Their mission? To fix the three-year backlog of undelivered mail. Despite only garnering one nomination at the major awards ceremonies for Best Original Song for “The Journey”, the film is easily the best work of Tyler Perry’s career so far.
While Perry is deserving of praise for bringing this movie to screen, work on the film began years earlier with journalist turned tech entrepreneur and producer, Carlota Espinosa, who is no stranger to undercovering a good story. Years before stepping into the world of film producing, she was an Emmy-winning television producer in Los Angeles covering all the major award shows, including the Oscars and Golden Globes®, as well as New York Fashion Week. Little did she know that this would be a harbinger of things to come.
She would eventually pivot into tech and ecommerce, co-founding HauteLook, a member-only shopping website offering flash-sales and limited-time sale events, alongside Adam Berhhard, serving as Vice-President. After three and half years, HauteLook would be acquired by retail juggernaut Nordstrom. She would then co-found the design-based search engine, Styleloot.com, serving as Chief Executive Officer, but the company proved to be ahead of its time. But it would be her next pivot that would bring her career full circle.
What would ultimately lead Espinosa to grace the biggest red carpets in the world wouldn’t be her passions for journalism and fashion, but history—World War II to be exact. It was through her love of World War II history that she first stumbled onto the story about the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion.
“When I first read the soon to be published article about the Six Triple Eight, it was unfathomable to me that such a remarkable story, filled with courage and resilience, had remained in the shadows”, she explains. “This was a vital piece of history that deserved to be celebrated and remembered. I knew I had to bring this story to light.”
She was immediately hooked and knew this story needed to be brought to the big screen. There was only one person who she trusted to help make that happen. Her friend of over 20 years, Keri Selig.
Over her almost 30 year career, Selig has worked as an executive at a number of major studios, including stops at Warner Bros, Twentieth Century Fox, and Paramount Pictures. She also has over 20 producer credits to her name and another 20 as an executive, garnering 17 award nominations, including a Golden Globe® and five Emmys. In 2010, she bet on herself and founded Intuition Productions, a feature film and television production company.
It was truly such an honor to meet and listen to these remarkable women talk about their time in the Army over eighty years ago. -Carlota Espinosa
Together, Espinosa and Selig would embark on a three year journey to bring this film to life. The duo would spend the first year developing the project, researching, investigating, and working the phones.
“After I secured the rights to the article, Keri and I embarked on our journey to uncover the stories of the remaining survivors of the 6888th”, Espinosa explained, “We traveled across the country at the height of the pandemic. It was truly such an honor to meet and listen to these remarkable women talk about their time in the Army over eighty years ago.
But they would face two challenges. First, how to locate Corporate Lena Derriecott Bell King (played by Ebony Obsidian), who was hard to reach, especially after having been scammed in the past. Second, the challenge of making this film while King was still alive and able to help ensure the story was told well. A breakthrough would come when Master Sergeant Elizabeth Anne Helm-Frazier would introduce them to the then 99-year-old Mrs. King. After a number of visits and building trust, Mrs. King was on board.
“We saw her every other week. It became more of a personal thing than a business thing”, Selig recalls.
With King involved and ready to tell her story, there was only one thing left to do—sell it. Espinosa and Selig put together a three act motion picture caliber sizzle reel that would eventually sell legendary songwriter, Diane Warren, to write the Oscar-nominated song “The Journey” before the film was even made. It would also be instrumental in selling the film to the cast and Tyler Perry himself. After receiving the reel from producer Nicole Avant, Perry was possessed.
“Tyler Perry watched it, called me and Carlota and said that he had to pull over; that it was like the women were in his back seat. The women were immediately a part of his life”, Selig told SHIFTER in a recent interview.
But Espinosa and Selig wouldn’t meet the film and TV mogul in-person for the first time until the day he met Mrs. King at her home. He was sold. But that was just the beginning. The years ahead would include stopping their lives and moving to Atlanta, as well as England, where the women actually served, to be on set throughout production.
You always set out to do a great pic, but this one was different because we had a real person we were indebted to. -Keri Selig
With a budget of $70 million, Perry pulled out all the stops in order to tell the story well. Instead of using CGI, Perry opted to use 800 extras on the very streets where the women once served. After finding a New York Times article about World War II letters, Perry had his team hand write every letter that appears in the film. And in a moment of serendipity, they bought a treasure trove of World World II memorabilia, and among the trucks was a locker that was once owned by Charity Adams, played by Kerry Washington.
For Perry, it was important to do the women’s stories justice.
“It was one of the greatest honours of his life”, Selig recalls about Perry.
Days before her passing, King was able to finally see the culmination of three years of hard work as Perry sat by her bedside with an iPad to show her a cut of the movie. Espinosa and Selig had also shown King videos from the film set, including the dance scene where she fondly remembered dancing to the jitterbug.
“Watching Mrs. King as she relived the dance scene from the film was a profound moment for me”, Espinosa recalls. “Her eyes lit up with joy, and I could see her transported back in time. It was a beautiful moment.”
Despite their long list of career accomplishments, for Espinosa and Selig, making The Six Triple Eight and helping to bring the women’s stories to life, is at the top of their list.
“It was an incredible honor to do this outside of the system. There were so many variables”, Selig explained proudly. “We were kind of left alone to make the kind of movie we wanted to make. It was a rare occurrence…You always set out to do a great pic, but this one was different because we had a real person we were indebted to. We made a promise to Mrs. King that we would get it right. We wanted to make sure we made her proud.”
The Six Triple Eight is available to stream now on Netflix.
Kevin Bourne is SHIFTER’s editor and Senior Entertainment Reporter focusing on Black music and film & TV. He was named one of 340 international voters for the 81st and 82nd Golden Globe Awards and a Tomatometer-Approved Critic by Rotten Tomatoes.
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