Twenty-five years after his last feature was released, filmmaker Matty Rich is making a return. He’s attached to direct T.I. in the upcoming thriller, Caller 100.
It is the first feature film for the director after his acclaimed 1991 debut, Straight Outta Brooklyn, which he directed at just 19 years old, and 1992’s under-seen The Inkwell, which starred Larenz Tate and Jada Pinkett Smith.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, who exclusively broke the news about the film, Caller 100 “centers on a popular radio personality whose chance encounter with a female listener turns his life upside down. Caller 100 has been described as a relationship thriller in the vein of Play Misty for Me, the 1971 thriller starring and directed by Clint Eastwood which told of a radio DJ stalked by an obsessive fan.”
Straight Out of Brooklyn, a film made with only $450k by Rich, financed by donations and maxed out credit cards, was popular on the indie circuit and even won the Special Jury Prize at Sundance and the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature. The Inkwell received mixed reviews and was not as warmly received. It recent years it has been the subject of discovery by new fans, especially for its starry cast of Tate, Pinkett Smith, Joe Morton, Duane Martin, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Morris Chestnut and many more.
After The Inkwell, Rich got out of feature filmmaking and moved to Paris. He began developing video game and then relocated to Los Angeles. He’s also the CEO of Matty Rich Games, a LA gaming company that develops family and Christian-oriented games for the Black community. THR says he plans to mine the Matty Rich Games library for other feature ideas, a concept that we actually reported years ago on Shadow And Act.
No word on the production timetable for Caller 100.
READ MORE:
Revisiting classic romantic comedy-drama ‘The Inkwell’ — 23 years later
The Greatest Lie Ever Told To The Black Filmmaker
What In The World Is Matty Rich Up To? Think Gaming & Film Adaptations Of Games
Photo: Getty Images
