Jesse Collins’ film and TV production company has signed a multi-year overall agreement with ViacomCBS cable networks to produce projects across all platforms.
Under the terms of the agreement, Jesse Collins Entertainment (JCE) may provide production services for the ViacomCBS cable networks segment — including BET, CMT, Comedy Central, MTV, Paramount Network, TV Land and VH1 on the television side.
On the theatrical film side, the company also has a first-look on JCE’s film development projects, which could include Viacom’s film entities such as Paramount Players.
JCE has played an integral role in producing many of television’s most memorable moments in music entertainment. With a decades-long relationship with BET, Jesse Collins, founder & CEO of the company, was the executive producer of the network’s “The New Edition Story,” a biopic on the boy band that first aired as a three-part miniseries on BET in 2017. The film posted record ratings for the network and attracted nearly 30 million viewers.
Collins also executive produced the company’s most recent limited TV series, “The Bobby Brown Story.” The two-part miniseries picked up where “The New Edition Story” left off and chronicled the talented but troubled singer’s exit from the popular ’80s boy band through his solo success and marriage to pop icon Whitney Houston. It debuted on BET in 2018 as the highest-rated non-tentpole program on BET since “The New Edition Story” aired the previous year.
Collins is currently in pre-production on “Uptown,” a three-part original scripted miniseries for BET that will chronicle the story of producer Andre Harrell’s iconic record label, Uptown Records. Herrell died earlier this month at age 59. Although the cause of death was not immediately known, according to The New York Times, “His ex-wife, Wendy Credle, said that the cause was heart failure and that Mr. Harrell had had heart problems for some time.”
JCE’s current TV series is “American Soul,” the story about the struggle to make the dream of Soul Train come true. Set in the early ’70s, filled with music, dance, fashion and glamour, this is the untold story of the launch of the first nationally-syndicated black music show and what happened when the music stopped. The series ended its first season as the No. 1 new cable scripted drama for African Americans 18-49 and its second season debuts on BET on May 27. Collins previously served as executive producer of BET’s hit TV series “Real Husbands of Hollywood” starring Kevin Hart.
On the unscripted side, Collins and JCE have also produced award-winning programming including the BET Awards, BET Honors, UNCF’s An Evening of Stars, ABFF Honors, Soul Train Awards, “Love & Happiness: An Obama Farewell,” Black Girls Rock!, Sunday Best and the BET Hip Hop Awards. Collins is also a producer for the iconic Grammy Awards and executive producer of VH1 shows “Dear Mama” and “Hip Hop Squares” with Ice Cube, CMT’s “Nashville Squares,” HBO’s “Amanda Seales I Be Knowin’” and Netflix’s “Def Comedy Jam 25.”
Jesse Collins Entertainment is repped by CAA and Morris Yorn Barnes Levine Krintzman Rubenstein Kohner & Gellman.