Nick Cannon Wants To ‘Empower Women’ With New Chris Brown-Starring Movie

A new film from Nick Cannon was announced on Tuesday, but it’s bringing quite a bit of confusion and outrage along with it. He’s set to write, direct, produce and star in a women’s basketball drama called “She Ball,” Variety reports, and he plans to do so with Chris Brown as his co-star.

Also starring in the film are Cedric the Entertainer, Evan Ross and Rebecca De Mornay, though it’s Brown that brings up the issue. The singer was arrested in 2009 for physically abusing then-girlfriend Rihanna, which makes it a bit confusing as to why he’s involved in this female-centric film that aims to “empower women,” according to Cannon.

“It’s something powerful for the culture, uplifting for the community, and the film’s main objective is to empower women,” Cannon said.

Aside from Brown being far from an obvious choice for this type of film, it’s also a wonder as to why a movie about women is being mainly created by Cannon himself, with only one female, Erika Conner, involved in the behind-the-scenes process. Conner is co-executive producing with Nick Spencer as part of the company One Media, while Cannon, Demetrius Spencer, Benjamin Sumpter, Michael Goldberg and Robert Keetch are also executive producers. That’s only one women among quite a few men.

Twitter is having quite the field day with this announcement.

“Um…don't you think some WOMEN could handle this project better?” David Wagner tweeted.

Another, Michael De Rose, wrote, “This seems ill advised.”

While user mansweater tweeted out: “This sounds like a horrible idea. How about we get a woman to direct this movie starring a guy who hasn’t beaten women?”

The tweets only snowballed from there with lots of GIFs and videos to help users get their distaste across.

At least “She Ball” is set to feature real female athletes in the production, which follows Avery Watts (Cannon) as he enlists a women’s streetball league to help him save a community center. Melody Rae Kandil, Jaliyah Manuel and former Harlem Globetrotter Tammy Brawner are among some of the real-life athletes in the cast.

Production on the movie has already started, which means only time will tell if they stop for a second to respond to all of the confusion about the film’s cast and crew.