Lionsgate’s label Codeblack Films has obtained the distribution rights to Fast Color, the Julia Hart-directed drama which stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw (The Cloverfield Paradox, A Wrinkle in Time). The film premiered at this year’s South By Southwest fest and will open in select U.S. theaters on March 29 by Codeblack in…

EXCLUSIVE: Lionsgate has just closed a deal for Couple Up, a spec script by Joshua Friedlander, in a competitive situation. The plan is to distribute it via the studio’s Codeblack Films label. A married couple, verging on divorce, wishes they had never met. In an It’s A Wonderful Life-type scenario, they see what life…

EXCLUSIVE: WWE Studios and Lionsgate urban label Codeblack Films have set a deal to co-produce and co-finance a slate of films, and they already have their first pic in the pipeline. That’s the action thriller Brother’s Blood, which Trey Songz has come aboard to topline with John Pogue directing a script co-written by…

Codeblack Films has tapped Effie Brown to produce the feature film adaptation of Omar Tyree’s bestselling book trilogy Flyy Girl. Brown and her banner Duly Noted will oversee development and recruitment of the creative team alongside Codeblack's Jeff Clanagan and Quincy Newell. Nicole Jefferson-Asher is on board to…

LUV and It’s A Disaster producer Datari Turner has scored a first-look deal with Codeblack Films, Lionsgate’s specialty arm geared toward black audiences. The agreement gives Codeblack all North America rights to Turner’s slate of microbudget films via his Datari Turner Productions shingle. Since founding the company…

Lionsgate’s CodeBlack Films will release the psychological thriller on February 28 in the U.S. Repentance, from Forest Whitaker‘s Significant Productions and JuntoBox, stars Whitaker (Lee Daniels’ The Butler) as a single father coping with the recent mysterious death of his mother. Suspecting that a well-known…

Lionsgate label Codeblack Films has picked up North American rights to Frankie & Alice and has set an April 4, 2014 release date. The deal ends a long-in-coming domestic deal for the Halle Berry drama thriller about a woman with multiple personality disorder who struggles to cope with her disease. The pic debuted in…

Lionsgate‘s Codeblack Films has snagged the rights to the Flyy Girl book trilogy written by New York Times bestselling author Omar Tyree. The coming-of-age story explores the journey of a young woman motivated by the material life who plunges into a fast-paced world of gratuitous sex, violence and heartbreak in an…

Two weeks before its stand-up pic Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain opens in theaters, the distributor founded by Jeff Clanahan has acquired U.S. rights to the romantic drama Things Never Said. The pic is written and directed by Charles Murray, who is making his feature debut after a decade in television. Shanola Hampton…

Days after landing a buddy comedy alongside Josh Gad — to go along with a recent renewal for Real Husbands Of Hollywood, the semi-scripted BET comedy he co-created and stars in — Kevin Hart has a stand-up movie hitting theaters just in time for Independence Day. Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain follows the comic on tour…

EXCLUSIVE: A film about two abandoned and scared boys trying to survive in New York City has found a new home. Codeblack Films has picked up US distribution for The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete. The George Tillman Jr-directed film made its debut at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25. With 13-year-old Skyl…

Codeblack Films has acquired the theatrical rights to the documentary Free Angela and All Political Prisoners. Written and directed by Shola Lynch, the film about Angela Davis premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last year. Free Angela chronicles how the young college professor became one of America's most renowned…