The world premiere of “Chi-Raq” started the promotional festivities for the film, and it all took place in Chicago. The press conference that followed the premiere featured the filmmakers and cast from the movie. The conference was held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in downtown Chicago. Appearing were Spike Lee, Nick Cannon, Teyonah Parris, John Cusack, Wesley Snipes, Harry Lennix, DB Sweeney, Kevin Willmott, and Father Michael Pflager. The entire audio of the press conference is below.
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The press conference was cut short. It was clear that Spike Lee had trouble dealing with the questions presented to him. I had asked him if he was concerned that casual fans seeing the movie might be turned-off and confused with the concept, and not understand the Greek myth aspect to it, and if the dialogue presentation will be off-putting. Lee quickly deflected the question and passed it off to Kevin Willmott.
Surprisingly there were no questions for Snipes or the lead actress Teyonah Parris, they just sat there awkwardly waiting to dash out of there. Lee got into a heated debate with a local reporter regarding the personal solutions Lee had for dealing with violence in Chicago. That seemed a bit unfair considering Lee isn’t a local politician or anything close to it.
Overall it was a brief and underwhelming press conference. Lee looked uneasy and was pretty defensive. He did hand out copies of the film’s soundtrack after the conference concluded. Lee handed me a copy and I couldn’t help but wonder where were the publicists to do that? The film was disappointing and so was this press conference. I’d rather have Lee talk about Kristaps Porzingis than about this movie.
Chi-Raq released in theaters on December 4.
*The provided pictures from the press conference were taken by me.
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