Latest in Allen Hughes

EXCLUSIVE: This morning in Toronto, writer-director Allen Hughes and FX unveil the first of their five-part docuseries Dear Mama. This is an epic exploration of the life of hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur and his late mom, Afeni Shakur, the former Black Panthers member. It is Hughes’ first trip back to TIFF since he and…

The changing face of Black film has been a roller coaster too fast to keep up with. There are outliers within cinematic history, but when looking at a successful period of movies that centered on the Black experience, one can look to the 1990s.  In the ’90s, there were pockets of success that fueled optimism Hollywood…

Editor’s note: One in a series of remembrances on the 20 years since 9/11. The 2001 Toronto Film Festival was at its midpoint on a clear and sunny Tuesday morning, when American Airlines Flight 11 out of Boston hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m., followed by United Airlines Flight 175 crashing…

EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros has landed What’s Going On, a biopic of iconic soul singer Marvin Gaye that Allen Hughes will direct, and produce with Dr. Dre, Jimmy Iovine and Andrew Lazar. The studio acquired a script by poet-playwright Marcus Gardley (he wrote the musical The Color Purple for WB) and the singer’s estate and…

EXCLUSIVE: Allen Hughes has resumed work on Outlaw: The Saga of Afeni and Tupac Shakur, the five-part FX documentary series about the volatile life and legacy of the late hip hip icon/poet, and the Black Panther member mother who raised him with the values that infused his socially conscious music. The pandemic…

Director Allen Hughes has closed a deal with the Shakur Estate that grants him full access to all of Tupac Shakur's released and unreleased recordings, writings and poetry. He will use all that to direct and exec produce a five-part documentary series on the late hip hop icon. Hughes will make it his follow-up project…

Many lessons can be drawn from the experience of Jimmy Iovine, the Italian-American son of a New York longshoreman who became a record industry mogul and co-founder of Beats Electronics. One of them is how to deal with fear. "When I was a kid, I was a guy in right field saying, 'Don’t hit the ball to me,'" he tells…

HBO's docuseries The Defiant Ones heads into Emmy nomination voting season with considerable momentum. The four-parter about music industry impresarios Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine has already captured a major documentary award over some prestigious competitors. In December it won Best Limited Series at the IDA Awards…

The Defiant Ones, a four-part documentary series from director Allen Hughes about the unlikely partnership between music legends Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, will debut on HBO in 2017. "The Defiant Ones has everything you expect in a great story – drama and humor, tragedy and triumph," said Casey Bloys, president, HBO…

HBO is developing a drama series from rapper-actor Snoop Dogg and director-producer Allen Hughes (Broken City, Gang Related). Written by Rodney Barnes (The Boondocks, Everybody Hates Chris) and directed by Hughes, the untitled drama is set in early 1980s Los Angeles and centers on a family whose seemingly idyllic life…

EXCLUSIVE: In his broadcast pilot directing debut, Allen Hughes just signed on to direct the Fox drama pilot Gang Related, from 20th Century Fox TV and Imagine TV. Written by feature scribe Chris Morgan (Fast Five), Gang Related centers on a gang member sent in to infiltrate the San Francisco Police Department who…

How hard are Mark Wahlberg and director Allen Hughes working to promote their new film Broken City? Doing TV interviews in Philadelphia, the duo jumped right in and handled the broadcast’s traffic and weather report. They acquitted themselves nicely, but it seemed surprising that Wahlberg didn’t tell the newscasters…