Who was the youngest producer in Hollywood history?
To those of us who don’t work in the showbiz industry, the role of the producer seems so foreign. Sitting somewhere between the business side of things and the creative side, it’s certainly no arena for a child.
In fact, Hollywood isn’t the place for children at all. For decades, horror stories about the poor treatment of young people in the industry have become almost normal, to be expected even. When we see a child star turn to drug and alcohol abuse, posing for risqué photo shoots, and entering a ‘wild child’ era, it’s sadly not surprising.
We’ve seen it for ages, with so many stars turning to destructive behaviour as a way to cope with the trauma of being exposed to an industry that didn’t have their best interests at heart.
But, every so often, a child makes it out relatively unscathed, even becoming somewhat of a wunderkind, like when a ten-year-old teamed up with her father and secured a production deal; clearly, with the right support, a child can do some pretty unbelievable things.
The youngest producer in Hollywood history
Marsai Martin can proudly call herself the youngest producer in Hollywood history, eventually producing the idea she’d conjured up as a ten-year-old when she was 14. After rising to prominence with a role on the show Black-ish, which earned her acclaim, she decided to venture further afield. Martin wasn’t going to let the fact that she was a young girl stop her from being ambitious, and luckily, the stars aligned pretty perfectly for her.
After telling Black-ish creator Kenya Barris about her ideas for a movie, Barris pulled some strings to try to get Martin’s ideas seriously considered by a producer. She contacted Will Packer, and before she knew it, she was an executive producer on a movie she’d also appear in as the lead. Penned by Tracy Oliver and Tina Gordon (the latter of whom also directed the film), Little would debut in 2019, with Martin playing a younger version of Regina Hall’s Jordan Sanders.
That same year marked the beginning of Martin’s production company, Genius Productions, although she admitted to Fast Company that, when she and her father were starting out with their new project, they “had zero clue what we were doing, to be honest”.
Little received mixed reviews from critics, but it was a landmark moment nonetheless, with Martin making history as the youngest producer of all time. While she has various projects in the works, she has since produced the Nickelodeon film Fantasy Football, which LeBron James also co-produced, although it wasn’t a glittering success.
Still, considering the fact that even now, Martin is just 21, it’s clear that she’s still only at the beginning of her career. With a whole production company and a Universal deal behind her, it’s not like she’s ever going to struggle to get a foot into the industry. It’s rare for talents as young as Martin to find such success, but evidently, with the right support, the right skill, and the right stroke of luck, it’s possible to make history.
