How Charles D. King Won Oscars And Made Millions With Multicultural Movies | Blueprint

[Music] with a law degree a few dollars and a dream Charles King rose from the mailroom to partner at William Morris Endeavor and then stunned the entertainment industry by launching his own multicultural media company macro this is his blueprint he grew up in Georgia he went to school as a Poli Sci major eventually got a law degree at what point in that did you decide I want to move across the country and get into the entertainment industry somewhere along the line someone said hey you're studying political science at Vanderbilt you have an interest in entertainment have you ever thought about entertainment law I had no idea what an entertainment lawyer did but that show way back in the day LA law the character played by blair Underwood the idea of that of that character that charismatic african-american lawyers stuck in my head I said oh that could be interesting and so I went on to law school at Howard University and it was at Howard with my focus was completely on entertainment and through all of my clerkships and experience and exposure that I got that's where I got the bug and someone told me about the talent agency world so from there I charted West now it spent three years studying the law yeah and you were now thinking about a career that has sort of only a tangental relationship to being a lawyer right yeah did you feel like any sort of pushback from your family where people look at you like they were definitely supportive but there was a feeling of well okay are you sure are you sure I'm a definite I learned about so many people who went into the mailroom who became you know powerful agents there were lawyers or had MBAs and it's not like it was I was going along a path that others hadn't gone through and this is what what what you do in the industry people pay their dues and they start from the ground floor up when you get on the plane though to fly out west how much money do you have in your bank what what is the runway look like that's pretty much done first off there was no plane okay that's it was a u-haul truck and I had very limited funds I didn't have a car I didn't have a computer and I'd live it I flew out to take meetings and pick out an apartment and I talked my way into an apartment by showing my Howard law diploma and so I moved into a one-room apartment without a car I bought a car on a credit card for $2,000 and I bought a computer I don't remember what I had in a bank but it was very limited it was under $500 it's not much and so I had about sixty meetings over six weeks and I got four offers all from intelligence see I said look I'm gonna start at the oldest one in the business I'm gonna start in the legendary William Morris training program and I went into that mailroom really it's a way to build relationships from the ground floor up to understand the language and I think about those relationships that I formed I mean from everyone from the people running the copy center down in the mailroom the people who are full-time mailroom staff to the CEO of the company I got to know everyone during that time and it really it was they dropped me into a pot of gold how much gold do you want a mine and I've used that time to soak up every single minute and every bit of knowledge that I could and build these incredible relationships they're really still to this day serve me throughout everything that I've been doing in building this company and definitely all the years that I was an agent so what are the conversations that you know a mailroom trainee has with the CEO of William Morris I had conversations with them and I would send proposals and charts about the shifting demographics in the country and how youth culture is impacted by urban culture and how that was pop culture you think about where hip hop was and the climb of everything with you know with what with puppy was doing bad boy and there was there's so much that was going on at the time and so looking at that and saying saying the same thing is going to happen and then you're gonna see this cultural shift that we've seen in music and fashion it's gonna happen in television it was gonna happen in film and it's gonna happen on the online arena as well and we're seeing that take place and how are these memos being received they were well received they understood course as a the only african-american in that training program and definitely you know blazing blazing history that I had to do my part so I read twice as many scripts I came in early I was the last one there I came in every weekend we're bringing in clients and cultivating business way before I was an agent I was bringing in all kinds of clients even before then like who I used to go out is entertainment law conferences and building these relationships with music lawyers and so Louise West and and Darrell Miller introduced me to Missy Elliott when she was at the height of her career and I brought her in when I was still a trainee when you're a trainee in the mail room and you go meet Missy Elliott who at the time is probably sitting on a couple platinum records yeah what is your pitch to make her you know believe that you can represent her the way that I approached most of the artists that are that I was interested in that I worked with was to understand their vision what was their five-year plan what was their ten-year plan and then I would look at the resource base of this vast agency and how are we going to tap into it what were your your big early wins with those first few clients so Tim story I met when he was at the height of the whole music video time and he was doing videos for in sync and Tyrese and all these other you know big R&B and hip-hop artists so he's one of the top music video directors in the space he'd made a couple of films when he was in film school went to USC and so I started hip-hop at him when I was on a desk and in the film group and my first year as an agent I was covering MGM and MGM had just acquired this spec script called barbershop I worked in conjunction with my one of my partners and colleagues poppy Hanks who worked at that production company then and we put it together and took Tim in there a year later they shot the movie and the two or so years and being an agent this massive franchise was this huge hit made for under 10 million dollars it did over 75 million domestically and you know go on to make you know have two or three sequels and so that was an early hit from one of the from my very first director client a lot is made out of the importance that agents play in sort of sculpting the careers they're artists but the inverse relationship has to also be true when you look at the clients that you represented who were the ones that were the most important to helping you shape your career I think about my good friend Ryan Coogler who I was blessed to meet with when he first shared his script with us for Fruitvale station he was just sharing his background at SC and what the story meant to him and it was just clear that what he was going to do with this film and telling Oscar Grant's story was much bigger than a young filmmaker who was looking to make his movie coming out at USC they'd had a mission and a purpose behind elevating culture and impacting communities that was far beyond what he was going to do as a filmmaker and and I really learned a lot about community activism frankly and a lot of the things that I was able to accomplish on an entrepreneurial level with a number of my clients but I look at the some of the risk and the stepping out on faith that one of my clients Tyler Perry that he took he invested in himself and he stepped out on faith on that very first movie die of a Mad Black Woman and co-financed that with the studio and the deal that we structured was you know a foundational piece of this Empire and that would not have happened had he not invested in himself I definitely took lessons and learned a lot from from everyone that I work with but then there were some who there are certain key things that really drove the needle and and still resonate to this day king scores him early and important wins but the entrepreneur and him came to Hollywood with a plan and he intended to get back to it what were the inflection points that catapulted you from being an agent to being a VP to being an SVP to eventually making a partner when I went from from being agent to VP it was around 2004 so three four years into being an agent I signed and started working with DMX at the height of all they action movies he was doing Andre Benjamin took off of hey also a client base that I invested a lot of time and energy and ii began to you know really have cultural resonance as well as began to do well economically and their business took off and started to thrive and then when I went from a vice president to senior vice president it was a perfect storm of amazing events that happen all at once from Hustle & Flow with with the Craig Brewer work with being the largest sale in Sunday's history at the same time that Tyler Perry's first movie took off and everyone in Hollywood was like who is he I can't believe this where did it come from to signing and starting to represent Terrence Howard right as he was getting nominated for Academy Award that was signing and working with with Prince and all of these things happen within about a eight nine month period of time I think it was also bringing in starting to work with Janet Jackson was just a confluence of an incredible things that happen all at once and so then I went from VP to senior VP and then when we merged when William Morris merged with Endeavour and the reset was hit for all of the shareholders of William Morris as well as the partners at at from endeavor we were all in the throne in the sandbox together it was during the restructuring of the company was then they set up a partnership group and then I was positioned as Paul one of the first group of partners at the company when that happened things seem to be going exceedingly well and all of a sudden you decided that it's time to disrupt this and make your job much more difficult by launching your own company what was the moment that he looked up and said this is all great and I'm enjoying my time at the vme but I want to do something completely different this was my plan when I moved to Los Angeles it was to within a ten year period of time to be at the helm of a diversified entertainment and media company and so I spent a lot of time continuing to represent artists during the day while building my relationships on my rolodex I became a very active investor angel investor in the tech scene I got very involved in the political world I cultivated relationships on Wall Street in the private equity world in the venture capital space so that when I launched the company macro in 2015 I have a relationship with all of these incredible people throughout other sectors outside of entertainment so we wanted a space that was artists friendly and creative and vibrant you know we all have to spend more time of the day at our place of work than at home usually and so we wanted to be a place where you would want to be here and you want to hang out you could feel creative we wanted a really open area and so this is like I guess you call it the bullpen of people just all exchanging ideas and information you launch the new company immediately I imagine it's sort of like you know out of the fire into the frying pan yes for sure what was the first like monumental challenge that you had to face when I made the leap of faith in January 15 I had a term sheet that was negotiated from an initial group of investors but there's a huge difference between a term sheet and a long form agreement and it's actually wired and in the bank and so when I took the leap of faith it was a leap of faith without a dollar in the bank it was belief in myself and in the vision and what we were doing it was like jumping off of a 50-story building naked macros first movie at the gate was fences which went on to be a commercial hit but perhaps more importantly to be nominated and win Oscars what is the significance for the company in that success one it showed the reason for a company like macro to exist here was an incredible story with two of the most amazing compelling artists of our time Denzel Washington Viola Davis based off of the work by August Wilson and this movie was actually having a challenge actually getting made and for a company like macro in its first year of existence to come in and provide the financing alongside Paramount Pictures to help this movie get me when it was teetering on existing and for that movie to then actually show that there was an audience that responded to it that loved it that was also wide and vast and then to have it also critically be acknowledged by the industry within with their peers was on so many fronts a major win and we wanted people pick out wallpaper that represents their personality and so that it could be vibrant and creative and and unique and different than what you would get in a regular kind of corporate environment she's got pear trees she's got peacocks then that brings us here so every day there's always all kinds of incredible filmmakers and actors and social media influencers politicians sports players all sorts of people to come in and hang with us and so we were like hey this is a cool thing we created a wall of like our friends and stuff yeah you can see it whether is everyone from my girl Janelle Monae to Lauren London John Singleton the executives just some of everyone who we've got projects with who we do stuff with who were building with throughout your career and I know particularly with macro you seem too focused on sort of making smaller to mid-level bets on movies like in these sort of 10 million zone what is it about that sweet spot that you sort of enjoy the most you think about the sweet spot look at some of the movies that have had tremendous breakout performance recently look at how well get outperformed look at the impact that hidden figures had these were movies that responded culturally it's a front to a multicultural audience had a unique point of view telling story that haven't been told before like these three brilliant black women stories that would have never been seen before and look at how well they perform financially it's not only domestically but internationally and so there's a huge opportunity to make compelling content within a limited budget range it's not overboard and can still generate massive returns and still also you know be seen by the masses but obviously over time will we hope to expand and make movies on a much larger budget range so you think about what Ryan Coogler is doing with black panther or you think about Ava Duvernay with wrinkle in time there could be movies on a much larger canvas that this company would finance and produce as we grow and expand as well as the major studios finally acknowledge the power of diversity King and macro are positioning themselves to lead the future of film television and digital so we've talked a lot about your many many successes I imagine along the way there have been some moments yeah that have been a little bit more challenging what are the failures or the challenges that you look at is probably the most instructive when I launched macro as I was navigating out of w/e was having conversations with an initial group of investors where I felt uncomfortable with some of the conversations that were happening and I had to be willing to truly bet on myself and walk away from this deal after 17 years and this was after I had launched the company I was no longer at dummy me had to believe in myself what me and my colleagues were gonna build and that's really that compass of when something doesn't sit well in your gut when you don't feel like something is the right partner and there isn't mission alignment with the people you're in business with that's not business you should be in when you were quoting these investors what was the sort of the first red flag that said this is not gonna work for us well it was clear with the first group of investors that there was a more of an interest for a short-term gain and even in some of the conversation the the word exploit was used there's nothing about what we're building as a company that has anything to do with exploitation and I think there were enough signs of kind of prior business activity that I knew that probably was going to be the wrong fit for us I want to work with people who believe in us and believe in our mission see a business opportunity but also see how it's going to uplift and make communities better not just make you know as many billions of dollars as possible there's got to be some sort of a kind of symbiotic relationship between the two yes and aliens would probably be okay yeah Billy what we're gonna is definitely gonna make billions but we want to do it in a smart and thoughtful way as we elevate communities while also doing good business the world has changed pretty dramatically from the days when barber shop came out yeah and particularly the multicultural marketplace has changed quite quietly what do you think the biggest things that have shifted are I think clearly television has embraced and understands this audience I remember when I wrote that first business plan 2011 wasn't even on the area and you think about what happened with shaundalyn and the huge impact that she's had on ABC and then ultimately even look at the the new head of that network so that's positive growth there alone what's even additionally exciting now with all of the newer voices you think about the impact that Atlanta had and the uniqueness and in the writers room that Donald Glover put together they've truly reflected the culture and made that show authentic and you think about what East Iranian secure is represented having come out of the digital space I'd say that we're gonna continue to see growth there we're gonna definitely see more people in the film side continue to realize that it's with all of the change and disruption there's tremendous opportunity and I think that those who are smart and are pivoting and are thinking ahead are gonna be the ones who are gonna really benefit you know things happen like the oscarssowhite controversy yeah two years ago you have to scratch your head and again as an outsider think how could this possibly have happened and from your perspective were you shocked by this or not really I wasn't shocked at all because I've been sitting in the room and a major talent agency for the last 12 years knowing every project at every studio and every financier is focused on making and if they're not making compelling story the reflect the spectrum of the community and marketplace how is anything going to bubble up to actually get nominated they're not actually being greenlit or made and so we've been surprising it's it's symbolic of a major larger issue with Hollywood it was less about the academy and Oscar so white and more of just a symbolic of what's going on in the industry speaking of the Academy you were recently invited to be a member yes tell me about what that receiving that acknowledgement is like I was really honored to be invited to join and be a part of this incredible group and organization of amazing artists and producers I thought that it was it was a great sign not only for me but also for others who we'll look to come after me to be a part of the Academy and a part of the sea change a positive sea change that I believe is is happening within the industry when you reflect on your period as a agent and also perhaps being a CEO what are the most important attributes that person who aspires to succeed in that world has to have in an industry where you know there's a can be a loose code of ethics when you're someone who actually has integrity and honesty and you and you give your word and you stick to that and you become known for that you can set yourself above and beyond others in the industry who may not necessarily adhere to those same rules and that was one thing that I always tried to do was to always recognize where I came from and who I am and not let the it's kind of cloud and all of the kind of Hollywood bells and whistles and everything that was going on around me and in the industry affect my compass and really trying to continue to drive through it and not let that affect how I did business and I found it that it helped me to stand out and become known for being different than others and I would say that if others followed suit I would hope and think that they would be quite successful in this industry [Music]

Channel: Complex

Views: 102,799

Rating: 4.9014087 out of 5

Keywords: sneakerhead, complex, complex originals, sneakers, news, entertainment, current affairs, young man, culture, cool, edgy, funny, complex tv, complex media, barbershop, talent agents, hollywood, film, production, producer, ryan coogler, tyler perry, charles king, wme, macro, sundance, oscars, denzel washington, viola davis, janet jackson, missy elliott, fences, Noah Callahan-Bever

Id: OEaNSRT-OJs

Length: 21min 59sec (1319 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 11 2017