Matthew A. Cherry is set to bring that creative heat to multiple platforms.
Cherry, the talent who gifted us the best-selling Hair Love book and Oscar-winning animated film short of the same name, signed a “multi-year first-look deal with Warner Bros. Television,” the Hollywood Reporter report
This may be his first TV deal—allowing the NFL alum to flex his writer, producer and developer chops—but he’s no stranger to the small screen, video or movies. Cherry has directed episodes of Black-ish, The Last O.G. The Red Line, Whiskey Cavalier and Mixed-ish; and videos for Jasmine Sullivan, Kindred The Family Soul, Michelle Williams and Chloe x Halle.
On the movie side, he wrote and directed his feature film debut, The Last Fall, starring Lance Gross, Nicole Beharie and Vanessa Bell Calloway. Fall made its debut at 2012’s SXSW Film Festival. Then, in 2016, Cherry made Black history with 9 Rides (which also bowed at SXSW), the first feature film to be shot on an iPhone 6s in 4K.
The former wide receiver got his start (back in 2007) as a production assistant on shows like Girlfriends, The Game and Heroes. Cherry said seeing Eric Laneuville directing Heroes changed things for him. “At a time when Black directors weren’t being given opportunities to direct genre network shows, I remember this time being around when I really started taking an interest in directing seriously,” he wrote on Instagram. “It was in part because I saw people that looked like me doing it.”
Cherry’s 2019 Hair Love is still on the The New York Times Bestsellers list for picture books. It’s currently holds the No. 4 spot.