This weekend will be the litmus test to see how viable the “Black Action Hero Movie Market” really is… For years Hollywood has never “Green Lighted” an All Black Action Hero film under the auspice that it will not sell. The Action Hero film genre average cost of 50 million dollars in production cost, Hollywood fears that risking that kind of money in a business model is bad business.
In retrospect some of the biggest films in Film History have been inspired, created, and written by African Americans. Sylvester Stallone goes on record to say that his inspiration for ROCKY came from watching a Muhammad Ali fight in which Ali’s opponent for a split second got in a few hits on the champ and created a false sense of hope for Ali’s opponent and in that moment Stallone became inspired to write and create one of the best inspirational and motivational films of all time ROCKY inspired by Muhammed Ali.
Also in the 80’s a client of mine Ms. Sophia Stewart (Google: Sophia Stewart) wrote a book called the third eye an all “Black Action Hero Movie” of which her inspiration for the main role of the characters was also Muhammed Ali. The Wackoski brothers read the book the Third Eye became inspired and created not one but 2 Blockbuster Brands “Terminator” and “The Matrix” grossing over 500 million combined sales to date from one body of work written by a black woman about “Black Action Heroes”.
So clearly if “Blockbuster” films from the last 30 - 40 years have been inspired and written by black people, but have been changed to fit the Distribution Requirements of Hollywood. Then the question becomes why now is it “Good Timing” for “Red Tails” to be successful? Is it because for the past four years we have subconsciously and consciously seen an African American operate as the commander and chief over our affairs in this country or because this story of the Tuskegee Airmen is just so important?
Either way the economic success of “Red Tails” is a lot bigger than George Lucas bank rolling a “Black Action Hero” film spending 50 million dollars. “Red Tails” success is a win for all of the Black Filmmakers, and Black Actors, and Black Writer who in the past have been creating great scripts and never got a green light because of Hollywood’s “Distribution Requirements”. Writers who watched their characters who were intentionally created to inspire little black boys and little black girls be stripped out of there scripts and replaced with white characters under the auspice of the “Hollywood Distributing Requirements” which are “Black Action Hero” films don’t sell!
The Tyler Perry business model is to spend 5 million gross 25 million net 20 million screening on 2000 screens using smaller distributing channels 2 - 5 times annually.
A market that Hollywood allows for Perry to dominate, because they have no interest in competing in that space.
In short if “Red Tails” is a success it will be a game changer for a genre of films and ideas that have been benched for the past century because “Black Action Hero” films don’t sell. In closing get your scripts together organize your thoughts create characters that inspire, motivate individuals towards change. If Lucas is successful the door will be cracked open and it is up to us to break it down with films that continue to inspire… To all great black filmmakers those to come and those to follow… STAY FOCUSED!
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David Anderson
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