Landon Buford
Last August, Power Universe creator Courtney Kemp announced that it would be exiting Lionsgate for the streaming service known as Netflix after Kemp agreed to a “high eight figures,” according to Deadline. However, similar to when Shonda Rhimes departed from ABC, she remained an executive producer on “Grey’s Anatomy,” in 2018.
When she sat down with the Hollywood Reporter this past October, Kemp revealed why she elected to move on from Lionsgate, “I want to challenge my audience,” said Kemp.
“I want to be pushed or to push people. I love honest, frank talk about race, gender, and sexuality. It’s not a small thing to me. When we were creating the characters in Ghost, one of the sons in the drug-dealing family is gay and has a relationship. There were people who were like, ‘You shouldn’t do that because the audience won’t like it. ‘ Well, if you make a show about people who are college-age in 2021 and everyone is straight, you’re an a**hole. You’re an a**hole if you make that show.”
During her eight years with the CBS affiliate, she created Power, Power Book II: Ghost, Power Book III: Raising Kanan on the air, Power Book IV: Force, and Power Book V: Influence is also on the way. Kemp recently revealed that if she weren’t leaving for Netflix and could do the sixth spinoff, it would feature Effie Morales.
Last week Kemp was on her weekly Instagram Live Q&A following the season finale of Power Book II: Ghost when a fan asked her when will there be a series of Power with a female breakout lead.
“I would love to do that. The closes that we have come to be honest has been Raq in Raising Kanan. For those of you that are watching Raising Kanan, that performance by Patina Miller is everything. That’s the closest we have been to having a female lead and that’s just how the show kinda broke out because Tasha went into witness protection,” said Kemp.
“There was not really a story to tell there, and other than that, because I am leaving and going off to Netflix. There probably won’t be another spinoff that is about a woman, but I don’t know. You guys asked me a couple of weeks ago, who would I write a spinoff, and if I was staying and I was going to do another one and it wasn’t Influence. I would probably do Effie.”
