Tracy Oliver: Afrochella inspired 'Girls Trip 2' Ghana setting

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 31 (UPI) -- Girls Trip screenwriter Tracy Oliver said she was inspired to send her characters to Ghana for the sequel after observing festivals there. It was not her immediate idea after the 2017 original.

"I just started seeing a bunch of stuff with Afrochella and people going to Ghana," Oliver told UPI in a Zoom interview for her Prime Video series Harlem. "I was like, 'Guys, can they go to Africa?' And it was just really well-received by the producers. Luckily they were like, 'Yeah, let's explore the ladies in Africa. Let's do that.'"

Oliver said the sequel was confirmed to Variety on Jan. 23. In 2021, Oliver told UPI that development of Girls Trip 2 was stalled over negotiations to pay the cast and creators a fair amount for a hit sequel.

Girls Trip starred Regina Hall, Tiffany Haddish, Jada Pinkett Smith and Queen Latifah as four friends on vacation in Atlanta. Oliver added that she did not want to set the sequel in other typical vacation spots.

"It kind of just came up organically," Oliver said. "We wanted to do something that hadn't been done before. We didn't want to do Vegas because Vegas has been overblown. Then we didn't want to do Miami."

UPI will share the rest of our conversation with Oliver and the cast of Harlem this week.