From AICN, That's right, forward progression has begun on Lucas' RED TAILS project. For - actually, I don't have a clue how long he's been talking about making a film about the Tuskegee Airmen. I know it began sometime in the same century as the actual event.
I actually seem to have a memory of this project around the same time as HOWARD THE DUCK. Now that's not to cast a HOWARD THE DUCK cloud on this project. Quite the contrary. I've always been excited about HOWARD THE DUCK and the Tuskegee Airmen. I'm hoping he casts folks like Laurence Fishburne or Andre Braugher or Cuba Gooding Jr.
Kidding aside - I love World War II aviation flicks. This is a great story, that even though it was told wonderfully on TV, the story could be amazing with the tools Lucas has at his disposal. I had assumed this was dead a long time ago. And what was the forward progression? He hired John Ridley to write the script. I wonder - all these years that it's been "in development" was there never a script? Hmmm...
So how great is John Ridley? Well... no joking... he's pretty fucking good. He wrote U-TURN, THREE KINGS, and my favorite... UNDERCOVER BROTHER - which is a work of genius that was underappreciated by a world filled with blind heathens.
But now that Lucas has hired a writer, something he usually does in secret and rarely acknowledges to the public - I think there's a chance this will actually get made. And it'll be an interesting combatting Visual Fx battle between Weta and ILM. Because Peter Jackson has his DAMBUSTERS in the pipeline - I wonder which will hit first.
2 comments:
I actually saw a really bad play about the Tuskegee Airmen called Black Eagles. It IS a great story, but that was not a good play. Then again, a play about aerial combat is bound to disappoint. The actors just sat in chairs holding phantom machine gun controls, revelling in how good it felt to strike a blow against racism by killing other human beings. Kinda weird.
This is the ultimate prequel to his franchise.
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