Last Wednesday will go down as another marker for the proliferation of Black talent on the big screen as the stars did indeed gather in London for the opening night of this year’s 65th London Film Festival. From their first names alone, the red carpet was graced by a plethora of A-listers, not seen in the capital since the heady days of Black Panther in February 2018: Idris, Beyonce, Jay-Z and Regina – all of whom showed out for the Netflix Black western ‘The Harder They Fall’ directed by Londoner Jeymes Samuel (of The Bullitts fame) and produced by Jay-Z amongst others.
Film geeks will be reminded of previous Black Westerns which made it to the screen with the likes of Mario Van Peebles’ Posse (1993) and Gang of Roses (2003) – the latter of which boasted of a cast line-up which featured Bobby Brown, Lisa Raye, Lil Kim, Stacey Dash and Monica Calhoun. I didn’t quite manage to pull off the red carpet for the film in question – that’s another story for another day!
The latest re-imagining of the genre sees a cast line-up which features Johnathan Majors, Idris Elba, Regina King, LaKeith Stanfield and Delroy Lindo. Audiences at large will get their chance to see what all the hype is about when it releases theatrically on 22 October (3 November on Netflix).
Also released last Wednesday – with a fair amount of hype – was the official trailer and poster for Boxing Day – the directorial debut of another Londoner, Aml Ameen.
11 years ago, I attended the BAFTA launch of Aml’s production company – AmeenDream Entertainment. I witnessed a man (and still do) who had a vision for how he wanted to see the culture represented. In that time, Ameen has steadily built and crafted a career off screen and on screen which has included starring roles in Red Tails, The Butler and The Maze Runner to name but 3. In 2015, he won an award for his breakthrough short film Drink, Drugs, KFC (starring Kedar Williams-Stirling, Aaron Fontaine, Samson Kayo and Arinze Kene).
Audiences last saw Ameen on screen as Simon in I May Destroy You. This time around, he stars, co-writes, produces and directs the first Black British Christmas movie of its kind. Ameen plays Melvin, a British author living in America who returns home to London for Christmas to introduce his American fiancée Lisa to his eccentric British-Caribbean family. Their relationship is put to the test, as she discovers the world her fiancé has left behind. Also cast in Boxing Day are Aja Naomi-King (How to Get Away with Murder), Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Secrets and Lies) and Leigh-Anne Pinnock, part of the British girl group Little Mix (in her first film role). If the opening weekend numbers for the latest James Bond film are to be reckoned with, the box office still matters in terms of what appeals to audiences who still yearn for the pre-streaming era of films that made you want to show out and revel in the atmosphere of a buzzing crowd.
Speaking in the press when the film was first announced, Ameen said: “It is such an honour to be teaming up with Warner Bros. Pictures, Film4 and BFI to bring Black British Culture to the world in this universal holiday rom-com. “It’s long been a dream of mine to capture films that reflect the wonderfully multi-cultural city that raised me while sharing stories from the diary of my life.”
The film has been slated for a December 3 release – meaning that it will have to remain in cinemas for 4 weeks if it’s to remain there for Christmas weekend which would be a UK first for a film by a Black British director. Speaking of Black British directors, we have the rare feat of another one releasing a film in cinemas the Friday before Ameen’s (the London bus joke comes to mind at this point).
Pirates marks another directorial debut from another Londoner – this time it’s the turn of broadcaster and TV presenter Reggie Yates. Set in New Year’s Eve 1999, three friends on the verge of adulthood drive through London determined to end the century with a bang as they desperately search for tickets for the best millennium party ever. The cast includes Elliot Edusah (1917), Jordan Peters (Blue Story) and Tosin Cole (Star Wars, Ear for Eye). The film (written by Yates) has been slated for a 26 November release.
Prior to the announcements of Pirates and Boxing Day, we only had 1 Black British feature film released this year – with that accolade going to The Tale of the Fatherless (co-directed by Stefan Davis and Misha Nadine).
2019 was the last time there were more than 3 films by Black British directors released at the UK box office. Also released in 2019 were Blue Story (Andrew ‘Rapman’ Onwubolu), Yardie (Idris Elba), The Last Tree (Shola Amoo) and Farming (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). The global box office was ravaged last year as a result of the pandemic. Blue Story was due to release in the U.S off the back of a successful UK theatrical run. Covid-19 put pay to that and it went straight to digital. In the UK, only 1 Black British feature film was released in 2020 – with that accolade going to Aki Omoshaybi and his directorial debut Real (also starring Pippa Bennett-Warner and Karen Bryson).
And whilst 2 more films to look forward to this year is far from an accurate reflection of the Black British pipeline of directorial talent – over the last 18 months we have seen the likes of Chiwetel Ejiofor and Remi Weekes make their directorial debuts on Netflix (with The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind and His House respectively). We also saw David Oyelowo make his directorial debut with The Water Man.
With a cast which features Oyelowo, Rosario Dawson and Alfred Molina, “The Water Man” stars Lonnie Chavis as a young boy named Gunner, who sets out on a quest to save his mother (Dawson) by tracking down a mythic figure called The Water Man, who holds the secrets to immortality. Amiah Miller plays Jo, a local girl who Gunner enlists to help him track down the mysterious figure who lives in the remote forest, while Oyelowo is Gunner’s father, Amos, who sets off to rescue his son as the kids’ journey becomes increasingly dangerous.
After debuting to strong reviews at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, “The Water Man” was released theatrically by RLJE and on PVOD in May, with Netflix handling global distribution on streaming beginning July 9. The movie launched on Netflix in the U.S. and Canada on Aug. 25. The film was produced by Shivani Rawat’s ShivHans Pictures, Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films and Oyelowo’s own Yoruba Saxon banner.
Speaking in the press recently, Oyelowo observed that the film’s success on Netflix busted a few myths about the appeal of films starring people of colour along with the changing goalposts of what defines a theatrical hit: “It’s been so interesting because I have come up in this industry, with very clear metrics of success, like box office and awards, the size of the budget, the size of your pay day,” he explains. “Those being things that are the compartmentalized metrics of your trajectory as a filmmaker, how the audience is imbibing your content. But a lot of them are built on lies that have been pervaded by gatekeepers.”
“I am shocked that the foreign sales model is something that we are still even engaging with,” he continues. “Because, I would say, fundamentally that is based on the side of our business that is fraught with prejudice.”
Those models, he explains, are hampered by the fact they’re a self-fulfilling prophecy. By basing an actor, director or project’s success based on the global box office numbers, while also perpetuating the racist and outdated myths that “Black doesn’t travel” or “Female-directed or female-led stories are pilloried as chick flicks or niche,’” Oyelowo says, “Then, how on earth can that metric be true, when the same industry that is creating the metric is also actively marginalizing, some of the folks who are trying to get their stories out there.”
The data also does much to dispute the racist and outdated “conventional wisdom” that “Black films — and stars — don’t travel.”
“It’s a narrative that we are seeing eroded every day, but I just love being part of the erosion of this narrative,” Oyelowo says. “It’s so exhausting to feel you have to prove it, but I do it because hopefully it’ll mean for me, for others, for great companies like ShivHans who have supported someone like me, it’ll be a little bit easier next time around.”
As for the female side of the coin – well we have the rare prospect of a female-helmed Black British feature film in UK cinemas – something of an anomaly in UK circles given that there’s only been 6 previous directors in over 120 years. Announced last week was the directorial debut of Dionne Edwards and her movie Pretty Red Dress. Screening as a work in progress at the London Film Festival, the film is headlined by another music star, Alexandra Burke, who is set to audition for a musical about 1960s music. Burke plays the character of Candice, who hails from a South London family who each have their own relationship with a single red dress in the upbeat film that promises to ‘subvert typical representations of Black masculinity’. The cast also features Natey Jones who plays her ex-jailbird boyfriend Travis, who buys the dress and sets the story in motion. Edwards’ career has blossomed in recent years, serving as an assistant director to Reinaldo Marcus Green on Top Boy and having won multiple awards for her breakthrough short We Love Moses.
We have the luxury of not having to wait long to see another female-helmed Black British feature film on our screens. This coming Saturday(at 10.15pm) sees the network television premiere (and London film festival premiere) of Ear for Eye. With backing from BBC Film, BBC Two and the BFI, it is the second feature film from the BAFTA and Olivier Award-winning writer and director Debbie Tucker Green after Second Coming (2014).The cast is headed by Lashanna Lynch (No Time To Die) and also includes Tosin Cole, Carmen Munroe (“Desmond’s”), Danny Sapani (“MotherFatherSon”), Nadine Marshall (“Sitting In Limbo”) and Arinzé Kene. Tucker Green has adapted her acclaimed 2018 Royal Court stage production for the screen, exploring the contrasts between demonstrations vs direct action, violence vs non-violence, the personal vs structural across Black families, friends, students and older generations in contemporary British and American society and features a soundtrack from artists including Run the Jewels, FKA twigs and Kano. The film is produced by Fiona Lamptey for Fruit Tree Media and is executive produced by Rose Garnett for BBC Film, Farhana Bhula for the BFI, Barbara Broccoli for Eon Productions and Tucker Green. Last October, Lamptey became Director of UK features at Netflix.
Debbie just happens to be one of the 6 aforementioned previous directors who has had a movie released in UK cinemas. And in case this comes up as a quiz question in the future – the other 5 are Ngozi Onwurah (Welcome II The Terradome), Amma Asante (A Way of Life/Belle/A United Kingdom/Where Hands Touch), Destiny Ekaragha (Gone Too Far), Rungano Nyoni (I Am Not A Witch) and Clare Anyiam-Osigwe (No Shade). For the record – there have been female co-directors who have released films at the UK box office. The aforementioned Misha Nadine and Rachel Wang (Afro-Saxons, co-directed by Mark Currie).
Not many directors, let alone Black British directors get the opportunity to make 2/3/4 films for cinema and TV. On the male side, there are notable exceptions – Horace Ove, Menelik Shabazz, Noel Clarke, Steve Mcqueen, Femi Oyeniran. On the female side – in addition to Asante and Tucker Green, Onwurah and Ekaragha have directed for TV. Word has it that Anyiam-Osigwe is soon to helm multiple film and TV projects, adding to the cornucopia of current riches that audiences have at their disposal.
You would think from this analysis that, compared to the ‘pale, male, stale’ sectors of the industry, there’s a lot going for Black British talent off screen and in many ways – there is.
There’s certainly been a sea change in the number of ‘new’ faces who are becoming directors (Oyelowo, Ameen, Ejiofor and Elba). And though the focus has been squarely on directors, on the producing side, there’s a lot to shout about. The likes of Frances Anne Solomon, Nadine Marsh-Edwards, Angela Ferreira, Esther Douglas, Stella Nwimo, Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor and Fiona Lamptey – are all making their mark in the industry.
One of the glaring omissions from Channel 4’s Black to Front programming schedule was the presence of a Black British film. The industry at large would do well to ride the sea change which is not only seeing Black British directors show and tell their own stories with greater regularity but show and tell other people’s stories and lived experiences aswell. And as someone once said “whisper it quietly but it’s a great time to be a Black creative in the UK”.
And so to the biggest film release in the post covid era.
Daniel Craig’s final outing as 007 has smashed UK box office records, grossing more on its opening weekend than any other film in the history of the James Bond franchise, and has become the biggest movie of the year after less than 2 weeks in cinemas.
No Time to Die, which also stars Lashanna Lynch as 007, received its world public premiere in the UK at midnight on Wednesday 29 September, and has already broken international pandemic box office records, making $119million dollars (£88million pounds) in the 54 markets where the film has launched to date.
This makes it the first title from a Hollywood studio to crack $100million without opening in China, the world’s second-biggest movie market, since the pandemic began more than 18 months ago.
In the UK and Ireland, fans headed to cinemas in record numbers with £26m in ticket sales recorded over its first four days – a sign that fans have been eagerly awaiting the thrice-delayed film – No Time to Die was originally scheduled to premiere in April last year. The film’s three-day opening weekend, from Friday through to Sunday night, hit a record £21m.
This makes it more successful than Skyfall and Spectre, the two biggest films in the history of the 59-year-old franchise, which each managed £20m at the UK box office on their three-day opening weekends.
No Time to Die, which also holds the record as the longest Bond film, clocking in at two hours and 45 minutes, has enjoyed the widest theatrical release of any film in UK history, launching in 772 cinemas with more than 9,000 shows daily.
Universal Pictures, which is releasing the film alongside MGM, said that so far internationally No Time to Die is performing in line with Skyfall, the most successful Bond film of all time which grossed $1.1bn globally. However, it is tracking 17% below Spectre, which went on to make $880m globally.
In the U.S, where the film opened over the weekend, it posted $56million from 4,407 theatres which, according to industry expectations, fell short of the projected $60-70 million based on largely positive reviews since its’ initial release. Given that No Time to Die has a production budget of $250m, a marketing budget of $100m, at least $60m in delay costs as the result of the film’s protracted launch – The 25thinstalment in the Bond franchise will do well to post at least $800m during its theatrical window if it is to be deemed profitable.
We’ll know by the end of the month (after its 29 October release in China) whether that proves to be the case.
Written by Film Producer and columnist, Emmanuel Anyiam-Osigwe MBE
