George Tillman Jr. has created a durable and highly regarded career as a director/writer/producer since 1995, when he made his indie feature debut,
Scenes for the Soul (1995), shot with his own money in thirty days with non-professional Black actors in Chicago, and sold it to Savoy Pictures for $1 million just before the distributor went bankrupt.
Tillman Jr.’s second writer-director feature was the phenomenally successful indie-produced
Soul Food (1997), starring Vivica A. Fox, Venessa Williams, and
Nia Long, grossing a robust $43 million globally (on a $6.5 million budget) for 20
th Century Fox, which then packed with George Tillman Jr. to create a successful TV series (of the same title), airing from 2000-2003.
Tillman Jr.’s next three features were as director only, starting with the military drama,
Men of Honor (2000), starring Robert De Niro, Cuba Gooding Jr., Hal Holbrook, and Charlize Theron, grossing nearly three times the costs ($32 million) with a total of $82 million. Tillman Jr.’s next directing assignment was
Notorious (2009), the biopic (written by Reggie Rock Bythewood and Cheo Hodari Coker) of rapper Biggie Smalls/The Notorious B.I.G., starring Jamal Woodard,
Angela Bassett, Derek Luke, and
Anthony Mackie, returning a profitable $44.4 million global gross for Fox Searchlight Pictures.
Tillman Jr. followed this project with
Faster (2010), the action-thriller starring
Dwayne Johnson and Billy Bob Thornton, with Carla Gugino, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, and Tom Berenger, grossing a weak $35.6 million. George Tillman Jr. expanded his filmmaking profile as both director and producer on the low-budget drama,
The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete (2013), with Skylan Brooks, Ethan Dizon, Jordin Sparks, Jeffrey Wright, Anthony Mackie, and Jennifer Hudson, earning 86% on Rotten Tomatoes. Tillman Jr. was the director only on the Nicholas Sparks adaptation,
The Longest Ride (2015), with Britt Robertson, Scott Eastwood, Jack Huston, Oona Chaplin, and Alan Alda, grossing $63 million on $34 million costs for 20
th Century Fox.
Fox was also behind producer-director Tillman Jr.’s lauded
The Hate U Give (2018), starring Amandla Stenberg, Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby, Common, and Anthony Mackie, premiering at the
Toronto Film Festival and winning several audience awards from festivals including Mill Valley and Hamptons.
Tillman Jr.’s first movie as writer-director since Soul Food was
Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World (2023), starring
Khris Davis in the title role,
Jasmine Mathews, John Magaro, and
Forest Whitaker, and released by Sony Pictures. Tillman Jr.’s next movie as a director was another biopic,
The Defender (date to be announced), starring Sterling K. Brown as famed defense attorney Scipio Africanus Jones.
George Tillman Jr. has had a robust career as a producer, including the hit
Barbershop franchise, starting with
Barbershop (2002),
Barbershop 2: Back in Business (2004),
Barbershop: The Next Cut (2016), and the TV series version of
Barbershop (2005). An additional
Barbershop franchise project that Tillman Jr. produced was
Beauty Shop (2005), starring Queen Latifah.
The combined global gross of the four films was $235 million, with each movie averaging at or under $20 million in costs. Tillman Jr. was a producer on the comedy-drama,
Roll Bounce (2005), directed by Malcolm D. Lee and starring Bow Wow, Chi McBride, Mike Epps, and Nick Cannon, and released by
Fox Searchlight. George Tillman Jr. was a producer (with his regular producing partner Robert Teitel) on the Latino-themed Christmas movie,
Nothing Like the Holidays (2008), with Luis Guzman, John Leguizamo, Debra Messing, Alfred Molina, and Freddy Rodriguez, earning $7.5 million gross.
