This is an interesting case of playability versus marketability. George Lucas discusses how difficult it was to convince the Hollywood studio system to distribute an entirely African American action movie. Its an I.L.M. effects-driven movie independently produced by Lucasfilm. But Lucas needed a large studio's marketing/distribution resources because its budget required a full scale international release. In the interview he compares Red Tails to Star Wars in its combat and scope. Interestingly, he's also promoting the movie by communicating the idea "executives think this movie is tough to market, so viewers, lets all prove Hollywood wrong". Its a dialogue to give viewers a sense of mission, that their admission ticket will really mean something.
If the film is hypothetically successful, it will be because some consumers are drawn to the inspirational WWII story, but mostly because consumers know that the Star Wars producer knows his dogfights.
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| George Lucas | ||||
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I saw this last week, it's so true there never really has been an all black cast in film (except for maybe Tyler Perry). Marketing it should be tough, it doesn't help either that the film looks slightly horrible.
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