Filmmaker Sixx King wants Black romance back on the silver screen
Black love deserves the spotlight. Sixx King's betting his career on it - and so far, he's winning.
Video: The official trailer for Jonesing: When Love Is a Habit is available for this story and will appear below.
The risk - and the reimagining
King didn't want to make a sequel to Love Jones. He wanted to build on what it made people feel. "Love Jones is one of my favorite films, right? It came out when I was a young man, so, you know, it really brought me back to that point," he told me. "[But], I always wondered about the characters. Did they get married? Did they have children? I wanted to reimagine what a continuance would look like, but through the lens of the daughter."
That's the core of Jonesing: When Love Is a Habit. We meet Simone - played by Aaria Charaman (movies and tv series) - the daughter of Darius Lovehall and Nina Mosley. News of her parents' divorce hits social media. It guts her. Then, at a poetry night, she meets Myles Cole (Kamaj Nixon Myers). Sparks, yes - but also pressure, doubt, timing.
"You know, Black folk, we love our characters," King said. "But when they went to see the film, they got to really sit with it, and they understood that this is her [Simone] journey, and this is a different beat."
Love in the digital now - and making room for Black male vulnerability
Jonesing isn't nostalgia dressed up as plot. It's a look at dating today - the surveillance of social media, the weight of other people's relationships pressed onto yours, the gap between the love you grew up watching and the love you're trying to build.
King also wanted to challenge the myth that Black men have to be unbreakable. Myles is a student-athlete, carrying expectations on his back while trying to show up for Simone. "These athletes that go to school, they're put on a higher pedestal," King said. "[Black men] always have a thousand people we have to take care of… I wanted also to be able to show what he was dealing with… and honored that vulnerability."
A fast, scrappy shoot - and a lucky break in casting
King spent months in pre-production, then shot the entire film in 10 days. "I don't have time to be doing 19 cuts, so we're going to do this Zoom every weekend for a few months until we get it right," he joked.
Some cast members had worked with him before. Simone's role, though, wasn't originally Aaria's. When the first choice fell through, she stepped in and clicked fast. King called her a "blessing" and a "lifesaver." You can feel it on screen - the scenes breathe.
He didn't wait for permission - he created demand
This is the part filmmakers will want to screenshot. King self-financed the movie, rented out theaters, and brought his audience to them. At times he charged $100 a ticket and still sold out 450-seat showings every 90 minutes. Red carpets. Cast appearances. A night out that felt like a moment - not just a screening.
He built that muscle years earlier touring Once Upon a Time in Philly. "I started going to Regal Cinemas, where they had stadium seats for 450. I did it like a stage play. I took it to Philly. I took it to Tallahassee. I took it to all of these forgotten cities where people spent money."
The numbers were impossible to ignore. According to Forbes, Jonesing made history as a rare self-financed Black film by a Black filmmaker to secure national distribution without a major studio or streamer behind it. AMC stepped in with a distribution deal. A TV adaptation is now in the works for fall 2026.
The long, weird road that led here
King's hustle isn't new. In the early 2000s, he became infamous for crashing awards shows to promote his work - walking on stage with the Foo Fighters at the Grammys in 2003, taking the mic at the MTV Awards, even accepting 50 Cent (movies and tv series)'s Artist of the Year trophy. It sounds wild because it was.
Then came 2006. He digitized his DVD, set the price at a dollar, and snuck on stage with Panic! At The Disco at the VMAs to tell everyone to visit a site he'd just bought: "MTV 6000." He says millions hit the page and bought the download. He also says he was arrested that night and ended up sharing a cell with the Brooklyn rapper formerly known as Mos Def. Police let him keep his phone. He checked the sales. The numbers, he says, were huge.
Then it all vanished. His friend didn't move the money out of PayPal fast enough. Paramount, MTV's parent company, sent a cease-and-desist. PayPal refunded everyone. "I was like, 'You gotta be f-- kidding me.' I was devastated," King said.
Why this matters if you cover movie or romance news
- There's clear demand for contemporary Black romance on the big screen - not just nostalgia, but new stories anchored in familiar worlds.
- Eventizing indie releases can work. Four-walling, premium pricing, and talent access turned screenings into must-attend nights and gave theaters data they couldn't ignore.
- Community first, distribution second. King's path shows that measurable audience momentum can unlock national chains - even without a studio or streamer.
- The pipeline is expanding. With a TV series planned for 2026, Jonesing isn't a one-off; it's a blueprint others will try to replicate.
What's next - and what it says about him
King's still the guy who forces a conversation. "I'm going to make them call me," he said. "I know the power of the Black dollar. So, I'm going to make my own direct deal with the theatres." He did - and the industry noticed.
He also took a victory lap this year, receiving the Nelson Mandela (movies and tv series) Award at Apulian Fashion Week in Italy "for using creativity and storytelling as tools for unity and social progress." He called it "an incredible honor" - then laughed that people "ain't gon' be able to tell me s- for like a week."
Maybe it's timing. Maybe it's grit. Probably both. But here's the takeaway: audience-first storytelling - especially about Black love - isn't a niche. It's the point.
