It’s laborious to consider it’s been 5 years since Arizona lady Wanda Dench texted an entire stranger, Jamal Hinton, to affix her for Thanksgiving dinner — sparking a lifetime of friendship.
Now, Netflix plans to show the heartwarming story right into a full-length characteristic, “The Thanksgiving Textual content,” recounting the occasions that led to their now-annual vacation reunion, Variety reported.
Dench, now 64, was making an attempt to get in contact along with her grandson when as a substitute she accidentally got by way of to Hinton, a highschool senior on the time, now 22, who joked, “You not my grandma. Can I nonetheless get a plate tho?” Because the matriarch is wont to do, she replied, “After all you possibly can. That’s what grandmas do … feed everybody.”
Within the spirit of the vacation, the misfired textual content in 2016 would launch a Thanksgiving dinner tradition of their hometown, Mesa, that has continued to today — and as their viral fame endures. They’ve additionally generously shared pictures and movies of their common conferences, re-igniting social media with every passing 12 months.
In 2019, they created a video of certainly one of their largest household gatherings but, together with prolonged members of each households and their mates. In it, Dench is seen giving Hinton a sentimental scrapbook of their unlikely friendship.
“We’ve grow to be actually good mates,” Hinton told The Post that 12 months. “Sadly, our schedules don’t often line up too properly and we stay an hour and a half aside, however now we have managed to have a pair dinners at her home and eating places.”
Dench mentioned on the time that her hospitality got here from her upbringing as a navy brat. “We moved round rather a lot, so strangers weren’t strangers to me,” she mentioned in a YouTube Q&A, and defined that it was frequent for her household to absorb neighbors on the bottom who had no household close by. “It was a traditional factor for us.”
She added, “Household is greater than blood. It’s the individuals that you simply wish to be with and that you simply simply really feel good with.”
Final 12 months, Dench lost her husband, Lonnie, to COVID-19 — and Hinton was there with Wanda each step of the best way, even sharing the heartbreaking information on her behalf on social media.
Netflix has tapped “The Bobby Brown Story” author Abdul Williams for the “The Thanksgiving Textual content,” in addition to producers Robert Teitel and George Tillman, Jr, finest identified for “The Barbershop Franchise,” and Lawrence Mott of “The Hate U Give.” A director and numerous forged members haven’t but been positioned.
Hinton shared the news of their film take care of his 132,000 Twitter followers on Thursday.
“I’m very excited to announce our new partnership with Netflix,” he wrote. “We thank each single certainly one of you in your love and assist in our journey the final 6 years. We will’t wait to inform our story on the large display!”
