It’s the announcement that surprised no one: Kenya Barris, the 44-year-old writer-director behind the Emmy-nominated series Black-ish on ABC and its Freeform counterpart Grown-ish, has officially confirmed his move to Netflix, following in the footsteps of Ryan Murphy and Shonda Rhimes. The move comes three weeks after the show-runner announced his departure from ABC, cutting short a contract that had three years left on it.
Details of the reported $100-odd million, three-year deal are scarce. We do know that Barris joins the streamer officially today to produce new series via his production company Khalabo Ink Society. Barris will remain executive producer on his shows at ABC, with Jonathan Groff and Kenny Smith serving as co-show-runners of Black-ish, and Julie Bean continuing to run Grown-ish. As for his new Freeform show Besties, the network hasn’t decided who will run it. Barris will maintain his film deal at Twentieth Century Fox as well.
Barris released this cheeky statement about the move: “When my agents reached out to me about this little garage start-up called Netflix, I wasn’t sure what to think. But after I talked to Ted [Sarandos] and Cindy [Holland], I started to believe that maybe this mom-and-pop shop with only 130 million subscribers might just be something . . . so I decided to take a swing . . . a leap of faith, if you will, and take a chance with the new kids on the block.”
Added Holland, Netflix’s vice president of original content: “Kenya Barris is one of our great modern storytellers. His honesty, comedic brilliance, and singular point of view, combined with the creative freedom he will enjoy at Netflix, promises to create powerful new stories for all our members around the world.”
Barris has been a prolific producer for ABC, with Black-ish generating solid ratings and critical acclaim. The network allowed Barris much creative freedom; high points included his 2016 episode Hope, which took place entirely inside the Johnson family living room and centered on the issue of police brutality, and his Season 4 musical opener, which celebrated the summer holiday Juneteenth. In between were some rough spots in their relationship—primarily earlier this year, when the network shelved an episode centered on the N.F.L. player protests. “Given our creative differences, neither ABC nor I were happy with the direction of the episode and mutually agreed not to air it,” said Barris at the time.
Barris also said previously that he was preparing to sever ties with the network following Roseanne Barr’s tweet about Valerie Jarrett, until the network fired Barr.
A native Angeleno, Barris—who also co-wrote last summer’s comedy hit Girls Trip—has a slew of movie projects set up around town as well, including the sequel to Eddie Murphy’s 1988 hit Coming to America. He is also in post-production on the Samuel L. Jackson reboot of Shaft, which he co-wrote and produced, and is currently filming the Universal original movie Little, based on an idea pitched by the young Black-ish star Marsai Martin. He serves as a producer on that project as well.
