Don Cheadle: Miles Davis Biopic Needed White Co-Star to Get Funding

Doobie Doo

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Don Cheadle: Miles Davis Biopic Needed White Co-Star to Get Funding
Feb 18, 16 by EURPublisher01 Leave a comment

image: http://www.eurweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Don-Cheadle-Miles-Ahead-Press-Conference-66th-JCslhEBcBGel.jpg


Director Don Cheadle the ‘Miles Ahead’ press conference during the 66th Berlinale International Film Festival Berlin at Grand Hyatt Hotel on February 18, 2016 in Berlin, Germany.
*Don Cheadle said his passion project about Miles Davis wouldn’t have gotten off the ground without crowdfunding and a white co-star.

The 51-year-old actor produced, co-wrote and starred in “Miles Ahead,” a film depicting a defining period in the jazz musician’s life.

Getting financing had been a major hurdle he only cleared when he raised about $360,000 on website Indiegogo, which allows artists to collect donations for projects, and hired Scottish star Ewan McGregor.

He said it was “one of the realities of the business that we are in” that films with all-black casts are thought to have little chance of distribution outside the United States and thus don’t attract investment.

image: http://c14.zedo.com/jsc/images/zplayer/inarticle-Close-Btn.png

“There is a lot of apocryphal, not proven evidence that black films don’t sell overseas,” he told reporters at the Berlin film festival. “Having a white actor in this film turned out to actually be a financial imperative.”

image: http://www.eurweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Don-Cheadle-Miles-Ahead-Press-Conference-66th-r3Asc9Oe6aOl.jpg


Director Don Cheadle and actress Emayatzy Corinealdi attend the ‘Miles Ahead’ press conference during the 66th Berlinale International Film Festival Berlin at Grand Hyatt Hotel on February 18, 2016 in Berlin, Germany.
Cheadle said it forced him to rework the script, which focuses on a period in the late 1970s in which Davis fell into a creative slump, to bring in a shady Rolling Stone reporter as a foil for the trumpet player.

“I think it works great, and particularly the fact that Ewan McGregor is the actor who is in it, I think he is fantastic in the movie. But that was a component of… allowing us to even have a budget to get the film made.”

Sony Pictures Classics will release “Miles Ahead” in the United States on April 1.


Read more at Don Cheadle: Miles Davis Biopic Needed White Co-Star to Get Funding
 

newworldafro

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At some point..........maybe.........one day ......... in this century ......:dead:

The African Diaspora will be able to regularly finance and support with quality ROI, films with mostly black casts....of all genres......one day........in this century....... keep saying, and Im not just echoing Umar or Tariq, that the fate of the African continent is the fate of African Americans and the rest of the non-continental Diaspora :wtb:.

A random Ugandan multi-millionaire should be able to distribute a random African American film project, etc because going forward those type of relationships should be typical and a paradigm of what an integrated Diaspora should look like.

It's not racist or nationalistic, hell it's just copying what the rest of the world does already.
 
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.༼-◕_◕-༽.

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At some point..........maybe.........one day ......... in this century ......:dead:

The African Diasspora will be able to finance and support with quality ROI, films with mostly black casts..........one day........in this century....... :snoop:
As long as we have these people who are so focused on destroying other Black people, it will stay this way... They're too scared to confront whites, but will attack Blacks all day.
 

At30wecashout

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:rocky:What kinda budget he looking for? With shyt like Tidal (not that I fukk with it) coming up and 100% free distribution online, you telling me there aren't
enough black people in hollywood to get it popping? You call Master P?

Again, what kinda budget was he looking for? I understand "black" movies get the shaft, but what was the goal? To shoehorn in major studio demands for mass distribution, or
to make a good biopic, even if it isn't in 1000+ theaters.
 

Drones

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That's really disappointing considering how much of our money passes through other communities before any other Black person uses it.

This generation will be the one to change the financial paradigm. When they make movie depictions of our contemporaries, they'll be funded by our own money.
 

Warren Moon

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I personally met the dudes who financed Tyler perry movies. Fact is the paying movie base for black movies are 40+ ages Bw. If they don't think u can get them ur going to struggle
 
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