Preston Whitmore is the writer, director and producer of This Christmas, a Sony picture starring Loretta Devine, Delroy Lindo, Idris Elba, Regina King and Chris Brown. This Christmas has earned approximately $50 million in domestic box office revenues and was the 47th top-grossing film of 2007.

Preston Whitmore was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. He began his career in the movie industry by writing and directing the low-budget action picture, The Walking Dead, chronicling the lives and mission of four African American soldiers in Vietnam, starring Allen Payne, Eddie Griffin, Joe Morton, Vonte Sweet and Bernie Mac. Thereafter Preston wrote and produced Fled, an action picture starring Laurence Fishburne and Steven Baldwin as prison escapees on the lam to find a hidden cache of cash and incriminating computer disk that would bring down the Cuban Mafia.

Preston also worked in television – writing episodes for the Malcolm & Eddie show starring Malcolm Jamal Warner and Eddie Griffin, and recently penned a one hour legal drama for NBC Universal entitled Evidence, as well as a pilot for Paramount Pictures: Sin. Preston also wrote and directed the play Pimp which debuted at the famed Tiffany Theater in Los Angeles. Moreover, Preston wrote and produced the television motion picture crime thriller, Blood Crime, starring James Caan and Jonathan Schaech.

Preston wrote and produced three pictures which addressed the issue of disproportionate number of African American men and women incarcerated in our penal system. The first Lockdown, starring Richard T. Jones, Gabriel Casseus and De’Aundre Bonds as a trio of friends unjustly imprisoned, tracked the gritty dissolution of their innocence and friendship behind bars.

Preston’s overwhelming research on Lockdown spawned Civil Brand which focuses on slave-labor programs in women prisons. This independent shoestring production starring Lisa Raye, N'Bushe Wright, Monica Calhoun, Mos Def, Clifton Powell and Da Brat won the Blockbuster Award for Best Film, Best Actor; Clifton Powell, 2002 American Black Film Festival; Audience Award for Best Film, Special Jury Prize, and 2002 Urbanworld Film Festival. In 2004, after completing a production rewrite of the Get Shorty sequel entitled Be Cool, Preston wrote, produced and directed the Screen Gems prison film, Doing Hard Time starring Boris Kodjoe, Michael K. Williams, Giancarlo Esposito and Sticky Fingaz.

Moving away from the gritty subject matter of prison films, in 2005 Preston wrote and directed Crossover, a film about street basketball starring Anthony Mackie, Wesley Jonathan, and Wayne Brady. A year later he began production on This Christmas, a film made in homage to his late mother and other members of his family.

Preston’s production company produced Dough Boys, an urban coming of age film, directed by Nicholas Harvell. Preston has a number of projects in development at his Los Angeles based production company, the Preston Picture Company.