Movie Blog reader Johnathan sent me an interesting story today revolving around Oscar winner Forest Whitaker and his upcoming film “Winged Creatures”.
Turns out the film almost got sunk and that Whitaker was almost removed from the movie because one of the film studio’s originally behind the film thought that Whitaker was “ugly, black and unbankable”. This comes to us from the folks over at LiveNews:
Despite having “the hottest ensemble cast in town”, including Guy Pearce, Kate Beckinsale, Dakota Fanning, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Jennifer Hudson, Woods said the company who owned the script wouldn’t accept Whitaker as a leading man.
“The initial finance fell through when I stuck with Forest Whitaker for the role of Charlie,” Woods (the director) said. “An executive told me straight: `Even if he wins the Oscar he’s ugly, he’s black and he’s unbankable.'”
Ok, now I admit that on the surface that quote appears horribly insensitive and outright racist. But before taking a comment out of context and assume the worst, let’s just for a moment choose to believe that the unnamed studio executive was speaking as a studio executive. Let’s assume for a moment that he didn’t have a problem with Whitaker being black because he hates black people, but that because he believes (rightly or wrongly) that black leading men (aside from Will Smith) aren’t as marketable or “bankable” as some other potential stars. Or that perhaps he made the comment because the script didn’t call for the character to be black.
I’m going to play devil’s advocate here for a moment and defend what the executive said (at least the PRINCIPLE of what he said). Keep in mind, he is the money guy. The movie doing well or doing poorly directly effects how much money his company gets. If he (for whatever reason) doesn’t believe that Forest Whitaker is capable of drawing in a large audience… doesn’t he have a right to object to his casting?
Ok, so he finds Forest ugly (I don’t), don’t pretend like you’ve never called someone that before. Ok he mentioned he’s black. Well… if he thinks that will have an impact on his bottom line, then he has the right to object. He thinks Whitaker is unbankalbe. Can we say he’s wrong about that? How many $100+ million movies has Forest headlined? None.
Forest Whitaker is one of the best actors out there, no doubt, but when you’re talking to the people who will be investing money, you also have to show them that getting a certain actor will also increase the potential for them to make money on their investment. If this guy (for whatever reason) thought Whitaker was a bad investment, can we blame him for fighting to get him out of the movie?
Personally, I’d put Forest Whitaker in as Dorothy in my “Wizard of Oz” remake if he wanted the role (I think he’s that good), but I can’t judge this studio exec for making… well… a business decision. Just my two cents worth.
