Lee Daniels Confirms Empire Spin-Off & It Might Focus On Cookie

Cookie Lyon is the family matriarch we didn’t know we needed on Fox’s Empire. I don’t even watch Empire, and I’m obsessed with Cookie. She is a no-nonsense chick with both business savvy and street sense. And there’s a chance that viewers might be getting a whole lot more of her. Lee Daniels just confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that he is working on another show that will serve as a spin-off of Empire. And no, it’s not his new show Star. He told THR that they’re “finally figuring it out.” Daniels didn’t provide specific details on when viewers could expect to be introduced to next iteration of his hip-hop musical, or if it would even be a musical. A couple of years ago, there were whispers that the Empire spin-off would be a prequel focused exclusively on a young Cookie Lyon. Daniels did not dismiss this as a possibility when he confirmed that the project is moving forward. "It could be… We really are in deep talks about it, and we're having all these ideas thrown around to figure it out," he said. We already know that Cookie wasn’t a normal young adult. She was involved in the drug game as a teenager before she met Lucious. She used her earnings to start Empire Entertainment, and we know what happened after that. This show already has all of the ingredients to be a hit. Make it happen, Lee! P.S. Yara Shahidi would nail the part of young Cookie.