Ashley D. Bell, Dr. Bernice A. King, Announces Ready Entertainment Production Company
Variety reports that Ready Life founder & CEO Ashley D. Bell announced the creation Ready Entertainment, a new production company dedicated to creating movies and TV shows with strong social justice messages.
Bell is a corporate finance attorney and the former White House policy advisor for entrepreneurship & innovation. Dr. Bernice A. King, the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, is a co-founder of Ready Life and will take an active role in Ready Entertainment.
Ready Life is an innovative fintech platform with a suite of financial tools that empower individuals to create and preserve generational wealth. Ready Entertainment follows the company’s mission to close the racial equity gap by helping to provide financial loans and the ability to buy a home to those without credit, empowering African Americans to take back control of their finances and banking institutions.
Ready Entertainment’s first film is “Cash Money,” written by Academy Award-nominee Terry Rossio (“Shrek,” “Aladdin,” all five of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films) and comedy writer Kevin Arbouet, who will also direct the project. Bell and Dr. King serve as executive producers.
“I am thrilled to bring the values and mission of Ready Life to all things Ready Entertainment,” Bell said in a statement announcing the production company. “Equity, especially as it pertains to banking and finance, is of paramount importance and I cannot wait to create content like ‘Cash Money’ to further our message.”
According to the film’s synopsis, “Cash Money” centers on Primo and Jimmy, a couple of auto mechanics laid off from their jobs in the dying town of Cross Creek, Missouri. When they drive to New York City determined to find answers for the nation’s economic woes, they gain the help of Roosevelt and Michelle, who run one of the few Black-owned banks in the country and learn how to create their own currency, the “Primo.” Soon other towns, then the entire country, are eager to adopt this new currency as the economy crashes. But, is their plan a recipe for success or too good to be true?
In addition to Bell and Dr. King, prominent members of Ready Life’s board include criminal justice reform advocate Alice Johnson and Van Jones.