Charles D. King and Phillip Sun’s M88 has enlisted two top-tier talents to their already impressive roster. Power-forward director Tina Mabry and multi-hyphen talent Taraji P. Henson have joined the firm for representation.
Tina Mabry first received recognition for directing the 2009 family drama Mississippi Damned, garnering 11 awards, including the American Black Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, Atlanta Film Festival Special Jury Award, Black Reel Awards Outstanding Independent Feature, and the Chicago International Film Festival’s Gold Hugo and Gold Plaque awards.
Mabry would go on to direct TV episodes for Dear White People, Queen Of The South, Insecure, Power, Pose and Black Jesus, to name a few. Mabry joins M88 following her Paradigm talent agent Gaby Mena, who transitioned to M88 shortly after the firm was created in August 2020.
Taraji P. Henson has been active throughout 2020 as the host of the newly created podcast Jacked: The Rise of New Jack Swing and the recently greenlit Facebook Watch series Peace Of Mind With Taraji. She is also voice actress of the character Belle Bottom from the animated feature Minions: The Rise of Gru, releasing on July 2, 2021.
Her acting credits consist of a series of culturally impactful films, such as John Singleton’s cult film Baby Boy, the Oscar-winning Hustle & Flow, critically acclaimed Hidden Figures, and her infamous role as Cookie Lyon on the Lee Daniels television series Empire.
The two actresses will be in the professional hands of president and managing partner Phil Sun, who built an extensive resume at WME before co-founding M88, the firm’s new partner Oronde Garrett, known for his work as a talent manager, and M88’s executive team which includes Jelani Johnson, senior partner and EVP of content strategy, M88 partner Gaby Mena, and managers Jerome Martin and Natalia Williams.
Majority-owned by Charles D. King’s MACRO, M88’s roster is filled with diverse talent that includes Michael B. Jordan (Just Mercy), Ryan Coogler (Black Panther), Kofi Siriboe (Queen Sugar), Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (The Trial Of The Chicago 7), Donald Glover (Atlanta), and more.
M88 intends to broaden the reach of diverse talent through the firm’s representation of “filmmakers, actors, writers and multi-hyphenates who shape culture,” a much needed institution for an industry looking to improve equality, mass appeal, and the bottomline.
