The African-American Movie Audience Will Packer (Rainforest Films; Producer, “Stomp the Yard”)http://www.rainforestproductions.com/wow/area.cfm?xcr=we |
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WILL PACKER, honored by The DailyVariety magazine as one of their “10 Producers To Watch” (September 2007), is co-founder and chairman of Rainforest Films. So deserving of the honor by the top industry trade magazine, Packer states “receiving this honor was great validation for my burgeoning work in Hollywood. As the only African-American honored on this list, I accept the tremendous responsibility that this represents to make movies that matter as well as have commercial appeal. I look forward to continuing to promote imagery that has not traditionally been pushed by mainstream Hollywood.”
Packer is responsible for producing and overseeing the company’s studio financed and self-financed films and distribution projects. He co-founded Rainforest Films with partner Rob Hardy in the summer of 1994 while both were engineering students at Florida A&M University. After graduating magna cum laude from Florida A&M University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering in 1996, Packer decided to forego lucrative job offers in the field of engineering to capitalize on his entrepreneurial instincts and his passion for filmmaking. His visionary and tenacious leadership fueled the production and successful independent distribution of the motion picture Trois, the company’s first film to be released theatrically. Trois grossed $1.2 million dollars and became the fastest million dollar grossing film distributed by African Americans.
Based on the company’s success as an independent distributor, Packer brokered a profitable partnership in 2001 between Rainforest Films and Sony’s Columbia Tri-Star to produce and distribute urban films. This partnership has resulted in Packer overseeing production and distribution budgets of numerous urban-themed releases including Trois: The Escort, Motives and the independent breakout hit film, The Gospel. Next, Will traveled to L.A to produce Mekhi Phifer’s feature directorial debut, Puff Puff Pass, before returning to Atlanta to jump into producing the company’s largest project to date, Stomp The Yard, which held the #1 position at the box office for two weekends in January of 2007 and received the 2007 Movie of the Year award from the BET Hip Hop awards. Mr. Packer and his business partner Rob Hardy, also produced the sequel to Motives. In 2008, Packer is slated to produce several projects, including Bone Deep, a movie about an L.A. detective gunning against a hip band of thieves as they prepare a $20 million heist, and the urban remake of the classic film The Big Chill.