Biography

KATE LANIER Screenwriter / Director Select Credits: What's Love Got to Do With It, Set It Off, Beauty Shop, CrazySexyCool

BIOGRAPHY Kate Lanier, born and raised in Harlem, New York City, is an accomplished screenwriter and director best known for What's Love Got to Do With It, Set It Off, Beauty Shop, and CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story.

She attended Vassar College on scholarship, earning her B.A. in English with Distinction in Creative Writing. Kate performed in numerous independent New York theater productions throughout her youth. After college, she played the lead role of Grace in Alan Taylor's first film, That Burning Question, which premiered at the New York Film Festival and earned Taylor a Nissan Focus Award.

Riding the success of the film, Kate transitioned into screenwriting. Her first spec script, Gabriel's Watching, sparked a bidding war and was sold to Warner Bros., with Lorenzo Di Bonaventura (Transformers) as executive producer. She went on to secure a three-picture deal at Disney.

Following this, she pitched What's Love Got to Do With It-the acclaimed Tina Turner biopic-to producers Doug Chapin and Barry Krost. Directed by Brian Gibson for Touchstone/Disney, the film garnered Academy Award nominations for both Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne, along with multiple other honors.

After What's Love, Kate wrote and directed Everybody Can Float for Touchstone/Disney and penned Set It Off for New Line Cinema.

SELECT FILMOGRAPHY (Partial List) (Bold titles indicate script-to-screen credits) Feature Films . Gabriel's Watching - Warner Bros. (1992) . The Rap Factor - Disney / Cotty Chubb (1993) . What's Love Got to Do With It - Touchstone/Disney (1994) . Beyond the Sea - Mandeville/Sony / Richard Gere Productions (1995) . Set It Off - New Line / Dir. F. Gary Gray (1996) . Cinderellas - Warner Bros. / Dir. Fab 5 Freddy (1997) . G-Dog - Columbia/Sony / Wendy Finerman (1997) . The Mod Squad - MGM / Dir. Scott Silver (1999) . Dance With Me (Production Rewrite) - Dir. Randa Haines (1998) . Human Stew - MGM (2000) . Out of the Darkness - Warner Bros. (2000) . A Star Is Born - Warner Bros. / Whitney Houston Productions (2000) . Untitled Dance Movie - Babyface & John Travolta (2001) . Glitter - Columbia/Sony / Mariah Carey Productions (2001) . Women's Maintenance Club - New Line (2002) . Soul of a Nation - HBO (2002) . Honey (Production Rewrite) - Universal (2003) . Beauty Shop - MGM / Queen Latifah Productions (2005) . Breaking the Box - Fox (2005) . The Harder They Come (Remake for female lead) - New Line (2006) . Be Where Your Feet Are (Spec) - (2008) . Deceived (Spec) - (2008) . One in a Million - Lifetime (2008) . Amina - Flavor Unit / Queen Latifah (2012) . Lost and Found (Spec) - (2013) . Keisha Cole Biopic - KC Productions (2017) . Jenni: The Jenni Rivera Biopic - Donald DeLine Productions (2019) . Black Privilege, White Power - Daniel Danielson (2022) . Caribbean Christmas - Jesse Collins Entertainment / Tisha Campbell (2023)

TELEVISION . CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story - VH1 / Exec. Producer: Maggie Malina (2013) . Beaches - Lifetime / Dir. Allison Anders / Starring Idina Menzel & Nia Long (2017) . Rebel - BET / Dir. John Singleton / Exec. Producers Kate Lanier & Dallas Jackson (2018)

WRITING & DIRECTING (Short Features) . Everybody Can Float - Writer/Director / Touchstone/Disney (1998) . Lucky - Writer/Director / Lemurian Productions (2024)