George Lucas dropped a major bomb about his new movie Red Tails on The Daily Show last night.
In his appearance, the legendary Star Wars director said he had trouble getting funding for Red Tails because of its black cast.
The film, which revolves around pioneering black pilots who fought in the US’s segregated armed forces during World War II, has been pitched by the director for over 20 years.
The renowned movie man says:
“This has been held up for release since 1942 since it was shot, I’ve been trying to get released ever since… It’s because it’s an all-black movie. There’s no major white roles in it at all…I showed it to all of them and they said no. We don’t know how to market a movie like this.”
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In the midst of George Lucas’ explanation to Jon Stewart he refers to Tyler Perry movies as “low budget.”
Uh oh! We wonder how Mr. Perry is going to like that one?
Just last week George also appeared on USA Today and talked about his fear of this movie failing and how it will affect black films.
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He said:
“I realize that by accident I’ve now put the black film community at risk [with Red Tails, whose $58 million budget far exceeds typical all-black productions]. I’m saying, if this doesn’t work, there’s a good chance you’ll stay where you are for quite a while. It’ll be harder for you guys to break out of that [lower-budget] mold. But if I can break through with this movie, then hopefully there will be someone else out there saying let’s make a prequel and sequel, and soon you have more Tyler Perrys out there.”
There’s a lot of controversy in everything George Lucas is saying. Do you think movies with black casts don’t get the respect they deserve?
Red Tails hits theaters on January 20th.
