Kevin Rodney Sullivan - Early Screenwriting

Early Screenwriting

At the age of twenty-two when he was able to sell a television script for the first time, it was for an episode of Fame for the ABC network. This connection to ABC allowed him to write the TV drama series Knightwatch in 1988. With Knightwatch, “He became one of the first African-American executive producers of a network television entertainment series". In 1992, Sullivan directed the pilot for a television series on ABC entitled Moe’s World, which is a story narrated by a kid who has been killed in a car crash. The story “tackled” topics such as teenage pregnancy and death as well as other topics that tend to affect teenagers today. However, while ABC bought the pilot, the show was never picked up by that network. Fox considered purchasing the show as well, but did not follow through.

Despite that minor setback, this background allowed Sullivan to jump into directing movies for HBO: the short film Long Black Song, which was one of three in the America’s Dream (1996) anthology movie, and Soul of the Game (1996). The later was a “docudrama” on how African Americans “broke the baseball color barrier” which follows the “triumphant and tragic stories” of Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige, and Josh Gibson as they make their way out of the Negro Leagues, and into the Majors. “For African Americans in this century,” Sullivan told The New York Times regarding Soul of the Game, “one man’s victory is often the result of others paving the way, sometimes making the triumph both bitter and sweet”. The movie was eventually pulled from air and is no longer available on television. Sullivan successes presented him with many opportunities, including the ability to collaborate with George Lucas on Red Tails, a story about the Tuskegee airmen, a famous African American Aerial unit from World War II; as well as with Norman Jewison on an adaptation of The Good Times Are Killing Me. In addition to these series, Sullivan also produced Frank’s Place (1987), I’ll Fly Away (1991), Boy Meets Girl (1993), and Cosmic Slop (1994), before his first major production.