Why DeVon Franklin Chooses to Make Faith-Based Content in Hollywood
By Movieguide® Contributor
Movieguide® award winner DeVon Franklin got his start working on THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS, and that opportunity inspired him to devote his career to faith-based content.
Per Deadline, Franklin “had interned for Will Smith since he was a freshman and worked with him for several years before being asked to forge a faith-based marketing campaign for 2006’s THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS, Franklin told today’s AVPSummit in south Italy.”
“As a person of faith that movie really spoke to me,” Franklin said. “Domestically it almost made as much as CASINO ROYALE and a lot of people attribute the faith-based marketing campaign to its success.”
He added that THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS “was the first time I said, ‘Oh, who I am as a person can be good for the movie biz and the bottom line. That was the beginning of me merging faith and film,”
His passion for faith-based content continues, and Franklin recently sealed a deal with Netflix to bring more faith content to the streamer.
“After over a year of searching for a new film deal, I had almost given up hope,” Franklin wrote on Instagram. “Then God began to move…At the end of last summer, my agent at WME set up a breakfast for me and Scott Stuber at Netflix, who was the head of film at that time.”
“What was supposed to be a breakfast turned into a 2-hour meeting,” he continued. “And we both connected over the idea of making movies with hope and faith. After the meeting, Scott told Dave that they were interested in making a deal.”
The first project coming from the new partnership is a modern-day retelling of the biblical story of Ruth called R&B.
“Set in Tennessee, R&B tells the story of a young woman who escapes the Atlanta music scene to care for an elderly widowed woman and in the process finds the love of her life and gains the mother she never had,” a synopsis reads.
Franklin concluded, “Remember YOUR PASSION IS YOUR PATH! God will make room for you in ways you can’t even imagine!”
Movieguide® previously reported on Franklin:
Movie producer DeVon Franklin joined Andrew Erwin on “The Storytellers” podcast to share how he got into the entertainment industry.
“Everybody was like ‘You need to preach’ and ‘You need to go into ministry,’” he said. “And I was like ‘Listen, I’m going into movies, that’s what I’m going to do.’”
Franklin knew he was called to entertainment and stuck to that calling despite the negative response from people in his church. After his father died of a heart attack when he was 9, movies became “therapy” to him.
“At that age, I got really curious about who’s making these movies, where does it come from, how does Hollywood work,” Franklin said.
- Content: +1Share:
- Content: +3