Tara Duncan is president of Freeform and the newly created Onyx Collective. She reports to Dana Walden, chairman of Entertainment, Walt Disney Television.
In her first year, Duncan spearheaded the formation of Onyx Collective, a new content brand under Disney General Entertainment that is committed to inclusive storytelling from creators of color and underrepresented voices. Under the umbrella, she acquired the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award-winning documentary “Summer of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised).” Onyx Collective’s first scripted project, legal drama “Reasonable Doubt,” from Raamla Mohamed and Kerry Washington, was also recently ordered to series at Hulu. Also, currently in production is “The Hair Tales,” a docuseries about Black women, beauty and identity through the distinctive lens of Black hair from executive producers Tracee Ellis Ross, Michaela Angela Davis and Oprah Winfrey. The brand’s roster of prolific creators also includes writer, director and producer Prentice Penny (“Insecure,” “Uncorked”), writer and comedian Natasha Rothwell (“Insecure,” “SNL”) and all non-Marvel titles produced by Ryan Coogler’s Proximity (“Judas and the Black Messiah,” “Black Panther”).
For Freeform, Duncan oversaw the series debut of “Cruel Summer,” which is the network’s most-watched series ever, including being a breakout hit on Hulu with next-day viewing and the most engaged new scripted cable series on social media. Additionally, under her leadership, the network launched “Love in the Time of Corona,” the first scripted limited series to shoot with social distance technologies; the fourth season of the Emmy®-nominated hit comedy “grown-ish,” cable’s No. 1 live-action comedy series for Adults 18-34; the third season of critically acclaimed “Good Trouble”; and the upcoming comedy “Single Drunk Female,” from Jenni Konner and Simone Finch, among others.
Duncan joined Disney General Entertainment from her overall deal at Hulu, where she curated a strong slate of projects, including an adaptation of Zakiya Dalila Harris’ acclaimed novel “The Other Black Girl,” which she won with Temple Hill Entertainment in a highly competitive bidding war. Before joining Hulu, she was a senior creative executive at Netflix, overseeing the hit series “Orange Is the New Black” and “Narcos” and launching series with directors Spike Lee, Baz Luhrmann, The Wachowskis and Justin Simien. Prior to that, she produced the pilot “Bosch,” Amazon’s first drama series, and was a key creative executive at AMC. She started her career at Section Eight, George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh’s production company.