Malone, Arquette shop a Memphis TV series
Could a crime drama series produced by music star Post Malone and actor David Arquette be in Memphis’ future?
That’s the hoped-for outcome for “High Heel,” a project recently shot here that will be shopped to various networks as a Memphis-based “strongwoman’s version of ‘Breaking Bad,’” in the words of co-producer Princeton James.
“There’s drugs and violence and an intense, continual adrenaline rush,” said James, a Memphis actor and filmmaker whose Princeton James Productions was a local liaison for the project’s more high-profile producers.
“It moves fast,” he said. “We had a few shoot-outs and fistfights.” (Scripted shoot-outs and fistfights, that is.)
Shot over six days here in January, “High Heel” had been kept more or less under wraps until executive producer Dre London — a music manager whose London Ent company is home to Post Malone, one of the most successful recording artists of the past five years — announced it this week in Variety, a publication that covers the entertainment industry.
Memphis provided an “emblematic” location for the show, London told Variety.
The entertainment journal described “High Heel” as “the story of a young woman running from her tormented past, who arrives in Memphis and enters a secret world of drugs, violence and deception when she’s recruited into a ring of female drug runners who smuggle their product under the cover of a luxury women’s footwear brand.”
So far, “High Heel” exists as basically
a “pilot presentation” or an extended “sizzle reel.”
Not enough scenes were shot in Memphis to be edited into a pilot episode or for a stand-alone film, if no series is forthcoming. Instead, the footage will be used to entice a network or production company to invest in a full season or miniseries.
“We’re in the editing phase now,” James said. “After that, it’s going to be shopped around to different networks.”
Rochée Jeffrey, a writer known for the Showtime comedy series “SMILF,” directed the “High Heel” footage. Actors — who presumably would repeat their roles if “High Heel” becomes a series — included Arquette; Trinidad James, a rapper from the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad and Tobago; and the Compton-born rapper Tyga. The two rappers also are producers on the project, along with London, Malone, James, Arquette and Arquette’s wife, Christina Arquette, among others.
Other cast members included Memphis performers who have found their major success outside the city, including Elise Neal (”Hustle & Flow,” “Logan”) and Carrie Bernans (”Black Panther”).
James said the Arquettes were pivotal to bringing “High Heel” to Memphis, in part because of their relationship with local actor and “duck master” at The Peabody, Kenon Walker (who also appears in “High Heel”). When the Arquettes became involved, the “High Heel” script was rewritten to be Memphis-focused.
Trinidad James also was a key Memphis booster.
An aficionado of Memphis music and culture, he promoted the city to Dre London as a likely location.
Of course, there’s no guarantee that any future “High Heel” series would be shot in Memphis, even if the story is based here.
But “Memphis is definitely a top option,” James said. Local shooting was facilitated with the support of the Memphis & Shelby County Film and Television Commission, which worked with the Downtown Memphis Commission to find office space for the production.