Producer builds pipeline for Black talent
After blazing unlikely path to Hollywood, Datari Turner is on a mission to change it
LOSANGELES— Growing up in Oakland, Datari Turner had two passions: football andmovies.
“Only one I thoughtwas a viable career, and that was sports,” said Turner, who got a scholarship to play football at Oklahoma StateUniversity. Although Hollywoodwas just 360 miles away, Turner thought, “Itmay aswell have been Dubai.”
But plans and dreams have a strange habit of collapsing and manifesting themselves in unexpectedways.
Today, Turner, 41, is a prolific independent producer with credits on some 30 feature films, including “Uncorked” “Ten Thousand Saints” and the successful TV franchise “GrowingUp Hip-Hop”— largely focusing on stories that reflect his experiences and that of his community. He’s had six films premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. Recently, Turner joined forces with actor Jamie Foxx to form a production company that has more than 10 projects in development.
“I love stories, but at the same time, Iwant to make an impact,” said Turner.
While blazing his own unlikely path toHollywood, Turner quickly stumbled onto an uncomfortable truth: “This businesswasn’t built by people that look likeme,” he said. “Itwasn’t designed by people likeme to tell our stories.”
Despite numerous discussions and initiatives, the levers of power inHollywood remain predominately white.
“It’s very simple; things are never going to change untilwe have Black people in positions to greenlight movies.”
Turner is on amission to make that happen.
He is in advanced talks to establish an endowed producing programat the cinema, television, emerging media studies
(CTEMS) program atMorehouse College in Atlanta.
Turner is on the board of the Blackhouse Foundation, a nonprofit aimed at amplifying
Black creatives and executives in the industry.
Given his own experience, he knew that the dearth of people of color occupying the upper echelons of the entertainment industrywasn’t due to a lack of talent or ambition but of access to opportunities— on top of socioeconomic barriers.
“The onlyway to change things is to change them at the root, andwe’re creating a pipeline of people of color to be able to rise up the ranks,” Turner said.
The child of an electrical engineer father and a board of education mother, Turner did not plan a career in film. An injury put his football aspirations on hold.
When hewasn’t playing football, Turner could usually be found in a movie theater.
“Iwouldwatch three or fourmovies in a day. The movies shapedmy life. A lot of the movies I likedweren’t Black movies; they were ‘Back to the Future,’ ‘The Breakfast Club.’ I’ve always just been a fan.”
Turner knew that he didn’twant to be an actor. Itwas the language of film, the imagery and storytelling that hewas drawn to. “I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll give this screenwriting thing a shot,’ ” he said.
Turner bought books on screenwriting and in two weeks had a draft of his first screenplay, “Video Girl,” which examined the dark side of ’90s music video vixens.
In 2002, draft in hand, Turner returned to California to launch his career as a writer. He gave the script of his first movie, “Video Girl,” to actress Meagan Good. “I called him after I finished it, and I was like, ‘Dude, this is dope,’ ” Good said.
Developing the movie took seven years and cemented aworking relationship with Good, with whomhe has made six films. The experience on the low-budget indie “Video Girl” began to shape Turner’s understanding of theHollywood machinery.
Without the benefit of film school or connections, Turner taught himself the business and culture of movies. He devoured every book on suchHollywood moguls asDavid Geffen and
LewWasserman.
He began researching the people behind the blockbuster films he watched growing up in the ’80s and ’90s, such as “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Flashdance” and “Top Gun.”
“Jerry Bruckheimer began to be a guide. I sort of looked at him as the gold standard of producers,” Turner said.
Turnerwanted autonomy to tell the stories hewas interested in. He concluded that the most powerful people in entertainment were the producers.
Hewas going to be a producer.
A few years ago when Prentice Penny, the showrunner ofHBO’s “Insecure,” was trying to direct his first film, “Uncorked,” which he also wrote, he recalled how Turner had his back.
“Not a lot of peoplewere looking to make a movie about a Black brother set in theworld of wine,” he said.
Themovie, a father-son
dramedy about a young man whowanted to eschew his family’s barbecue joint inMemphis and become amaster sommelier, was the kind of story that Turnerwanted to see on the screen.
Turner, said Penny,
“liked that Black people get to be in places like Paris and England in themovies theway thatwhite people get to travel theworld. It was just up his alley.”
Among the projects Foxx and Turner areworking on is a docuseries for Apple.
“The art of producing itself is one of the most marvelous things in the business. He has the knack,” said Foxx. “He knows howto get the best and get the best out of people. And that is a rare and golden entity that a person possesses.”
The idea for theMorehouse project took shape about five years ago.
Itwasn’t lost on Turner that any number of successful power playerswere
graduates of the Peter Stark Producing Program, an MFA track atUSC. He likened it to a farm team for Hollywood’s golden triangle of power: producers, studio heads and talent agency partners. “The selection process is brutal,” Turner said. “Most kids, especially of color, can’t afford the program.”
About a year and a half ago, Turner began a conversation with Stephane
Dunn, a founding member and the director atMorehouse’sCTEMSprogram.
Dunn calls the program they are hoping to launch “actual pipeline building.”
For Turner, this nascent program is his biggest production yet.
“I lovemovies, and I love helping artists tell their stories,” he said.
“My dad always told me, ‘You have to give just as much as you receive.’ You know? Sometimes more. Forme, that’s always been my statement, to really pay it forward.”