HBO’s Tina Turner Feature Doc To Debut This Spring; Universal Pictures Content Group Takes World Rights

Tina, a feature documentary about musical icon Tina Turner, is set to air on HBO later this spring.

The WarnerMedia cable network will premiere the film, from directors TJ Martin and Dan Lindsay and produced by Lightbox on March 27 at 8pm.

Universal Pictures Content Group has taken world rights (minus UK and U.S.) to the doc and will roll the pic out theatrically-first in the early summer before it heads to digital, TV, SVOD and further home ent platforms. Altitude, which brokered the sales deals, will release in the UK.

The film, which has been in the works for a few years, is a look at the life and career of the Private Dancer star, charting her rise to early fame, her professional and personal struggles and her resurgence during the 1980s.

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It will feature interviews with Turner herself, conducted in her hometown of Zurich, Switzerland and features never-before-seen footage, audio tapes and personal photos.

It will cover her life and work with Ike Turner, having climbed the charts with songs like River Deep – Mountain High and Proud Mary, as well as the abuse she suffered and subsequent divorce.

Having lost everything in the divorce, Turner spent several years in Las Vegas, performing in cabaret clubs and appearing on television variety shows before recording Private Dancer in 1983 and spawning hits such as What’s Love Got To Do With It.

The film will include interviews with Angela Basset, who played her in a 1993 feature film, journalist Kurt Loder who co-authored I, Tina, which inspired the film, Oprah Winfrey, Katori Hall, the playwright who wrote Tina – The Tina Turner Musical, and her husband and former record executive Erwin Bach, who also exec produces.

Tina is produced by Lightbox for HBO Documentary Films and produced by Simon Chinn, Jonathan Chinn and Diane Becker and exec produced by Bach, Tali Pelman, Will Clarke, Andy Mayson, Mike Runagall, David Gilbery, Charles Dorfman, Nancy Abraham and Lisa Heller.

“Tina is the ultimate celebration of a global superstar and an intimate portrait of a woman who overcame extreme adversity to define her career, her identity and her legacy on her own terms,” said Simon and Jonathan Chinn. “From her early career as the queen of R&B to her record-breaking sell-out arena tours of the ’80s, Tina Turner draws back the curtain to invite us into her private world in a way she has never done before. We are thrilled to be partnering with Universal, Altitude and HBO to bring the film to audiences around the world.”