Tillman received offers to start a new project starring Steve Martin, and to create biographical films based on African American figures such as Dorothy Dandridge, Marvin Gaye, and Richard Pryor. Tillman told Murray in an interview, "I love Marvin Gaye..there's something about him and his struggle that I think will make a great film. It's so interesting to see how someone was so very talented and at the same time so very insecure." In regard to Tillman's next big upcoming film, he is going to base a film on the heroic story of Carl M. Brashear—the U. S. Navy's first African American master deep sear diver. It is a project that Tillman envisions to be similar to popular classics such as "An Officer and a Gentleman" and "Glory". Tillman told Painter, "I love characters people can identify with and relate to—characters that go through struggles we can learn from in our everyday lives. I feel that with a lot of films today, we're getting away from that."