DeVon Franklin began building a relationship with Babyface a decade ago, and it has blossomed with the release of his latest movie.<\/p>\n
Success Of \u201cRuth & Boaz\u201d<\/h2>\n
The former Sony executive has added a new project to his <\/span>portfolio:<\/span><\/a> \u201cRuth & Boaz,\u201d a modern twist on a Biblical story that premiered on Netflix Sept. 26 and features Serayah McNeill, Tyler Lepley, <\/span>Phylicia Rashad,<\/span><\/a> and others. Boardroom reports<\/a> that it became the platform\u2019s most-streamed movie during its release week, garnering 434.4 million minutes of watch time.<\/span><\/p>\n Franklin also tag-teamed with Tyler Perry<\/a> as a producer on the film. Together, they \u201cproceeded to negotiate the best film deal\u201d he\u2019s done in his career, he said<\/a> in a Facebook post.<\/p>\n Franklin now has nearly 20 years of experience creating inspirational projects and has been in <\/span>Hollywood<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0for nearly 10 years more, he reflected on the \u201cBlack Tech Green Money\u201d<\/a> podcast hosted by AFROTECH Brand Manager Will Lucas.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2122<\/p>\n This experience is part of what has made Franklin successful, he noted, saying, \u201cBecause of the time that I put in to being in Hollywood and staying the course and learning and just growing in the business,<\/a> I now have credibility.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo the success of \u2018Ruth & Boaz\u2019 continues to expand that credibility, which continues to, I believe, provide more opportunities for me to make more content<\/a> like this and bring stories like this to the world. And I think it also will open doors for other filmmakers who are like-minded,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n The film\u2019s creation marked a full-circle moment for Franklin. Nearly 20 years ago, he <\/span>was hired<\/span> as a junior executive in the film department for Edmonds Entertainment, owned by Babyface and his then-wife, Tracey Edmonds. The then-couple launched Edmonds Entertainment in 1997 and experienced immediate success with \u201cSoul Food,\u201d Variety <\/span>reports.<\/span><\/a> The company also had a footprint in television, music, and digital media, its website <\/span>mentions.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI was excited by the opportunity to work at Edmonds Entertainment. It was, at the time one, of the premier entertainment companies in Hollywood, Black or otherwise. They had film, they had television, they had music, they had music management, they had record labels,\u201d Franklin said on \u201cBlack Tech Green Money.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd so, as a young executive with something to prove, being given a chance to be a junior exec was something that I didn\u2019t take lightly,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n Putting his best foot forward and being \u201chungry for opportunity,\u201d he would go to work early and leave late. He would be of service to requests from the company and fulfill tasks \u201cwith excellence,\u201d a trait he learned while being raised in the church, he said on the podcast. While he was not aware at the time, this left an impression on Babyface, who is a multi-hyphenate as a singer, songwriter, and producer for his own records and some of Hollywood\u2019s best.<\/p>\n \u201cI was hungry for opportunity, especially at that time, I was hungry to make my mark in the business. I was hungry to learn. I was hungry to move forward in my career. And so that hunger showed up in my commitment to excellence, my commitment to serve, my commitment to being integral, being a good character commitment to work hard,\u201d Franklin explained.<\/p>\n Years later, Franklin is reaping the benefits of his work ethic and drive working under Babyface with \u201cRuth & Boaz.\u201d Babyface makes a cameo in the film, wrote and produced the song \u201cFaithful\u201d for the film\u2019s soundtrack, and produced a cover of \u201cGoodness of God,\u201d reports<\/a> Billboard.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you sow excellence, you\u2019re going to reap it. I didn\u2019t realize that the way I would reap the seeds of excellence that I planted when I worked for Babyface 20 years ago, that I would reap those seeds in my own movie that I produced. That\u2019s a miracle,\u201d Franklin expressed.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s amazing that here I am starting to produce a film and I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh, wait, this part would be perfect for Babyface. Oh, hey man, do you want to do it?\u2019 \u2018Yeah. Hey, of course I want to do it. I\u2019m proud of you. This is great. Look at the man you\u2019ve become.\u2019 So I just would encourage anyone to plant those seeds every day. Plant those seeds, just keep showing up. And again, you might even change jobs. I\u2019ve changed jobs multiple times before I started running my company. It\u2019s not so much about that. It\u2019s about the mindset and it\u2019s about the work ethic,\u201d Franklin continued.<\/p>\n Check out the full\u00a0conversation with Franklin on \u201cBlack Tech Green Money.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n The post DeVon Franklin Reflects On Babyface And Tracey Edmonds Hiring Him As A Junior Executive And The Full-Circle Moment It Led To Today<\/a> appeared first on AfroTech<\/a>.<\/p>\n The post DeVon Franklin Reflects On Babyface And Tracey Edmonds Hiring Him As A Junior Executive And The Full-Circle Moment It Led To Today<\/a> appeared first on AfroTech<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" DeVon Franklin began building a relationship with Babyface a decade ago, and it has blossomed with the release of his latest movie. Success Of \u201cRuth & Boaz\u201d The former Sony executive has added a new project to his portfolio: \u201cRuth & Boaz,\u201d a modern twist on a Biblical story that premiered on Netflix Sept. 26 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2091695,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[357182,394525,356746,22860,357181,357180],"class_list":["post-2091694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-devon-franklin","tag-edmonds-entertainment","tag-full-circle","tag-hollywood","tag-ruth-boaz","tag-tyler-lepley"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/DeVon-Franklin-Reflects-On-Babyface-And-Tracey-Edmonds-Hiring-Him.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2091694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2091694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2091694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2091696,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2091694\/revisions\/2091696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2091695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2091694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2091694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2091694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Reflecting On Hollywood Tenure<\/h2>\n
<\/div>\n
Full Circle Moment With Babyface<\/h2>\n
Watch Full Episode<\/h2>\n