DeVon Franklin Speaks on Faith in Hollywood

Again, as a young kid, I just always was just so enamored by entertaining and being in films and television and watching movies and TV shows that really inspired me. And so I remember vividly just saying, “Wow. How can I be a part of that? How can I be a part of the industry? How can I make content? How can I produce?” And that desire and that curiosity drove me even in high school, no middle school. I was starring in plays and being a part of theater. Same in high school. I was part of the theater group that was there, because I just loved being able to bring these stories to life through characters and storylines and emotions and wardrobe, making all these things. 

And so, being in entertainment now for 18 years and finally be able to start my own company, and to launch Franklin Entertainment is an answer to prayer. It’s been almost 30 years in the making, when you look at it from the moment I remember getting the desire and now it coming to fruition. And the goal here is to make content and to be a voice of inspiration and hope and positivity in this industry. 

Entertainment really is the lifeblood of culture to a degree. And so much of what is done in Hollywood affects the world, how people think of themselves, how people perceive others, of what is possible, what’s not possible. All of these ideas and things get worked out through what people consume. If you watch a television show, and you begin to think that that show and those representations are reality. So it’s such a powerful medium. My goal was to use this medium to uplift the culture, to be positive, to be inspirational. 

And those things and those concepts and those ideas, for me, are not like soft. Like, “Oh, inspirational, oh, positive.” No that’s what I’m saying. What I’m saying, is we all deal with real life, right? Real life is hard. So being conscious that what I create is going to mirror we go through. But also have something in it that when you walk out of the theater or you turn off the television, you feel better about your life. You feel better about what’s possible because what you have just seen, you can relate to, but it also gave you something that makes you want to do better, or that inspired you to be better. 

That’s my hope. And my hope, as me, as a producer, and personality, whatever you want to call me, I don’t worry about the title. I just do what God tells me to do, that whatever God calls me to do, that I can do it in a way that others will benefit. And that really was the desire to start my own company. It was the desire to take a leap of faith and leave Columbia Pictures as an executive. And all of those things were not easy things. But the desire to help people and be everything God called me to do was stronger than my desire to stay and never know if I could make it. You never know what God’s plan is to be.