In The Beginning. Although T.I.’s first major film The ATL only grossed $21 million in 2006, the popularity of the film took a life of its own in the highly lucrative DVD business. More important, The ATL proved to Hollywood producers and studios that T.I. was no gimmick. He was charming, suave and had a street edge all at the same time. Based off the success of The ATL, T.I. and his Grand Hustle Entertainment production shingle signed a production deal with New Line Cinema in 2006. Their first film targeted for development was For Sale, about the adventures of a used-car salesman in Atlanta. New Line, which had launched Ice Cube’s Friday franchise had also recently signed Kanye West and Dr. Dre with different production deals as well. The hope was to turn New Line into an urban film powerhouse where artists could enjoy creative freedom that they would never get with a major studio. At that same time in the middle of 2006 Tip landed a small role as a young baseball player in a little movie you might have heard called…American Gangster.

However, after T.I.’s gun charges and arrest in October 2007, For Sale never got off the ground and the producer for T.I.’s other movie Once Was Lost exclusively revealed to WoooHah.com back in October that “T.I. is no longer attached to Once Was Lost…” and was dropped from the film. New Line was also dealing with rumors that it was going to be absorbed by their parent company Time Warner and brought in under the Warner Brothers banner. Sony Screen Gems on the other hand was enjoying a series of highly profitable urban hits such as Stomp The Yard, This Christmas and most recently First Sunday. They also planned to release Chris Brown’s basketball movie Phenom in 2009. Attention was focused on riding the lucrative urban wave at Screen Gems as Sony extended Screen Gems president Clint Culpepper’s contract in 2008 until 2012. One of the first mandates of Culpepper was to expand their urban film production presence. They had been working closely with Ice Cube, now it was time to find another.

Released From Jail. As T.I. was finally released from jail, his entourage, agent and manager all knew they could take advantage of their situation and get a reality show. In comes Ish Entertainment, producers of reality shows such as “Hogan Knows Best” and Tori Spelling’s “So Notorious.” Once Ish brought the cameras rolling into T.I.’s house it was only a matter of time until the pitches were made to various TV networks and MTV ended up buying the rights. T.I. was still confined to his house but the deals were actually being negotiated while he was still in jail. New Line was absorbed by Warner Brothers in February of 2008 and in doing so hundreds of production deals were shelved or cut. Everyone in the industry knew if you had a production deal with New Line it might be years before any progress would be made now, if any.

Once T.I.’s sentence was announced, Hollywood studios were buzzing that he was out of jail and had a limited sentence which would allow him to still have a long-term movie career. With New Line off the plate for now, multiple studio heads took up talks with T.I.’s agents at ICM and Grand Hustle partner Jason Geter all in hopes of signing T.I. and Grand Hustle to a production deal.

Screen Gems fights for Tip. With Clint Culpepper’s renewed power at Screen Gems, he was able to quickly offer T.I. and Grand Hustle a lucrative three picture production deal. The deal allows Grand Hustle a tremendous amount of flexibility with provisions written in for the one-year prison sentence that T.I. will have to face. Considered a strategic alignment, Screen Gems hopes that T.I.’s escalated presence with the gun charges and time in jail will actually increase his public awareness and make him an even more formidable actor and story-teller.

The first picture under the Screen Gems deal is Bone Deep which Variety announced yesterday but WoooHah.com announced two months ago. The movie is actually a collaboration with Will Smith’s production company Overbrook but will be distributed by Screen Gems. Film is about a group of bank robbers who are pressed to do one last job and has been compared to a tougher, grittier version of The Italian Job and Oceans 11. Following that release will be a drama called Boulevard and an unannounced project after that. Word is the unannounced project could potentially be about Tip’s own story growing including his own experiences in jail and having to live with his T.I. vs. Tip personalties.

So even as Clifford Harris gets ready to do his countless hours of community service, spends time with his newborn kid and his year sentence in jail awaits, nothing can slow him down. Big things poppin’ for T.I. not just in music…cause we all know he is getting the major paper from the movies.