For years, George Lucas has flirted with the idea of returning to the sort of small, so-called personal movies that he toyed with at the outset of his career, before Star Wars diverted him off the path of the iconoclastic New Hollywood directors and straight onto the blockbuster highway.
Set aside for a moment the fact that every film Lucas has made in the last 13 years has been personal — the Star Wars prequels were done by him, his way, with his money, and the upcoming Red Tails is the product of more than twenty years of interest in the Tuskegee Airmen — and what starts to emerge is the idea that Lucas is tired of being second-guessed, criticized and scrutinized.
And so, after Red Tails is released, Lucas wants to walk away from the high-profile filmmaking world and make the sort of films that his friend Francis Ford Coppola has been making in the past decade. Read More »
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According to executive producer George Lucas, Red Tails is “as close as you’ll ever get to [Star Wars] Episode VII.” So it seems appropriate that seven minutes of the film have made their way online for your viewing pleasure.
The action epic, over two-decades in the making, is directed by Anthony Hemingway and sports a super-impressive cast such as Cuba Gooding, Jr., Terrence Howard, Bryan Cranston, David Oyelowo, Tristan Wilds, Method Man, Andre Royo, Ne-Yo and Michael B. Jordan, just to name a few. It tells the inspirational story of the Tuskeegee Airman and is the first non-Star Wars or Indiana Jones film LucasFilm has released in almost two decades.
After the jump, watch seven minutes of Red Tails as well as an interview with George Lucas from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart where he talks about why the studios didn’t want to make the film, how it’s similar to Star Wars and the fact that he has both a prequel and sequel already in his head. Read More »
I really love the action we’ve seen in the first two trailers for the George Lucas-produced, Anthony Hemingway-directed WWII film Red Tails. In both the first trailer and this new one, we see some spectacular dogfighting action. It’s the sort of stuff that any student of Lucas knows has been the filmmaker’s major preoccupation for decades. Seeing these encounters created as direct (if exaggerated) representations of World War II, rather than filtered through the lens of Star Wars, is pretty neat.
As for the rest of the footage… well, the acting looks a bit on the uninspired side, doesn’t it? I’m not sure that will even matter, because between the action and the ‘against all odds’ true story of the Tuskegee Airmen, Red Tails might have to really work overtime before it stalls out. Read More »
Break out your best ‘delayed flight’ metaphors: the George Lucas-produced film Red Tails, which follows the exploits of WWII flyers the Tuskegee Airmen, is finally going to hit skies. Or screens, as it were. The date: January 20, 2012, confirming previous info from director Anthony Hemingway that the film would be released this coming January.
Along with that release date the trailer for the film has just hit. Get a look at the war film that was many years in the making, after the break. Read More »
Fans have been waiting to find out when we’d get to see Lucasfilm’s first non-Star Wars or Indiana Jones film in two decades and today we might have our answer. Anthony Hemingway, the director of The Tuskegee Airmen film Red Tails, produced by George Lucas, just tweeted that the film will be released in January 2012. With the recent news that Terence Blanchard will be scoring the film this month in Prague, that sounds just about right. Not that there’s a rush, Lucas has been developing the film for 20 years and it began shooting several years ago. Read More »
One year has passed since we heard anything about Red Tails, the first Lucasfilm movie in almost two decades without the words “Star Wars” or “Indiana Jones” in the title. The World War II film about the legendary African-American pilots named The Tuskegee Airmen stars Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr., Bryan Cranston, David Oyelowo, Method Man, Tristan Wilds, Michael B. Jordan, Andre Royo and many more. George Lucas is a producer, as he’s been wanting to make the movie for 20 years, but it’s directed by Anthony Hemingway (The Wire).
Last May, we got a brief glimpse of the movie but, since then, a full calendar year has passed with no updates. In the meantime, Hemingway has directed several episodes of Treme, Community, but now, finally, there’s some actual news on the film. They’ve just signed Jazz legend Terence Blanchard to record the score in Prague this June. Read More »
We’ve heard a couple of rumors about Red Tails, the World War II flick about the Tuskegee Airmen produced by George Lucas and directed by Anthony Hemingway. But until now we haven’t seen any photos or images. You can see a few behind the scenes shots after the break, culled from a large collection of photos that are meant to show off the digital imaging tech used to shoot the feature. Read More »
Not too long ago there was word that Red Tails, the WWII movie produced by George Lucas and directed by The Wire‘s Anthony Hemingway, would be undergoing extensive reshoots. At the time, the report was that Lucas and producer Rick McCallum were quite unhappy with Hemingway’s material. That seemed dubious, though the idea of reshoots was certainly credible.
Not long after, Lucas said that the report was inaccurate, but didn’t deny it outright. Now there’s more information, and yes, Lucas is directing the reshoots, making Red Tails the first non-Star Wars film to bear his directorial touch in quite some time. (Possibly since American Graffiti, but one has to suspect that he has essentially directed at least small portions of other films he’s produced since then.) Read More »
