I still haven't seen this movie
but this is an interesting article on it in the Guardian, a British paper. It explains why some of these films don't end up in places like my home area (5.5% black):
They call it buppie love
Black moviegoers visit the cinema more than any other group in the States. Now Hollywood has finally woken up to the value of the African-American dollar
Kaleem Aftab
Sunday June 29, 2003
The Observer
You would have been forgiven for thinking that a fashion shoot was taking place in the heart of Brooklyn last October. In fact, the crowd of well-dressed young men and women had formed a large queue outside the UA Cinema on Court Street to buy tickets for the opening night of the week's big film. Once inside, they showed their appreciation as soon as the star of Brown Sugar, Taye Diggs, appeared on screen. Women roared their approval, while their dates responded by urging Diggs's character, a music executive named Dre, a direct reference to the hip-hop producer Dr Dre, to sleep with both his fiancée, Reece (Nicole Ari Parker), and his best friend, Sidney (Sanaa Lathan). In the film, Sidney is the editor of XXL, which in real life is New York's hippest music magazine.
Their enthusiastic reaction was just as entertaining as anything happening on-screen, and some of the most memorable lines came from the auditorium. Just like the actors on-screen, the majority of the middle-class moviegoers were black, but film executives aren't complaining about the niche appeal of films such as Brown Sugar. Aspirational black romantic comedies and dramas are among the most profitable films currently being made in Hollywood.
The face of black cinema changed in 1998 with the release of How Stella Got Her Groove Back. In the film, Angela Bassett plays a fortysomething stockbroker who rediscovers love on holiday with a man, played by Diggs, who is 20 years her junior. Like Waiting to Exhale, Stella was also based on a Terry McMillan novel and featured a cast of affluent, smart professionals. These films marked a break from ghetto sagas, such as Boyz N The Hood, that were popular at the beginning of the Nineties.
To the sound of tills ringing, Hollywood woke up to the fact that black films need not feature drugs, action sequences or Eddie Murphy. Producers were initially surprised that black audiences were so keen on corporate romance, but they soon swung into action. The results were a far cry from the traditional screen images of black sexual behaviour shown in blaxploitation movies or the timid approach of earlier Sidney Poitier films. 'Previously, the defining image of black sexual relations on screen were Mandingo and rape sequences portrayed in blaxploitation films,' says Stacy Spikes, who runs Urbanworld, the biggest black film festival in America.
Miramax spotted a lucrative market and studio boss Harvey Weinstein asked Stacy, then his vice-president of marketing, if he would like to head up a new division called Miramax-flava. Miramax-flava was to produce films specifically for the young, upwardly mobile black audience or 'buppies'. Then the Scream franchise exploded and Miramax changed tack, opting to produce a spate of teen-oriented horror films, so Stacy Spikes left to launch Urbanworld.
Back in 1986, Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It broke new ground. The indie movie contained raunchy sex scenes, but it was a serious attempt to explore female sexuality and the New York singles scene. The story of a woman and her three boyfriends fell foul of the American censor, with Lee claiming: 'The censors had trouble more with the fact that there are black people making love on screen rather than the sex scenes on screen.'
Stella , a more restrained film, had no such trouble, inspiring a number of imitators. Love and Basketball (2000) was a romance about high-school friends who discover 10 years on that their passion for basketball is not the only thing they share. In The Best Man (2000), a comedy set around an upscale wedding, the best man is an author who has written a thinly veiled novel in which he reveals a one-night stand with the bride to-be.
Other films such as The Wood (2000) and Two Can Play That Game (2002) have followed the same formula, featuring black middle-class people generally working in the media or sports industries, hitting their late twenties or early thirties, reassessing their lives and falling in love. Films set in the music industry are also popular with fans and studios alike, partly because they can accommodate cameo appearances from music stars and generate chart-topping soundtrack albums. Since they don't feature established stars, these films are relatively low-budget: Brown Sugar cost $8 million but took $28m in America.
'The studios are making these films because there is a contingent of African-Americans who have that lifestyle - middle-class, up-and-coming young people who hang out and go to clubs and parties. These films are therefore very attractive to them,' says Sam Pollard, who produced Spike Lee's 4 Little Girls.
A new generation of black stars has emerged, including Diggs, Morris Chestnut, Omar Epps, Sanaa Lathan and Gabrielle Union. They might not have the profile of Denzel Washington and Halle Berry, but their faces regularly adorn the cover of black magazines such as Ebony and Trace. Black magazines and dedicated TV channels, including the Black Entertainment Network, have helped promote these 'buppie' films, giving them plenty of favourable coverage.
Black moviegoers visit the cinema more than any other demographic in America. For action films, for example, between 25-30 per cent of the audience is black and this figure can double if there is a black star. Therefore, 'buppie' films can make healthy profits even if most have a narrow audience. 'The majority of Brown Sugar 's box office came from a black audience, but the return would have been much larger if it had crossed over,' says a 20th Century-Fox spokesman. Apparently, there is still a barrier to a white audience watching black films that does not exist in reverse.
As a result, such films usually only play in major cities, normally New York, Washington DC, Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, LA and Detroit. The films are restricted to urban areas as it is not deemed cost-effective to market them in areas without a large black community. Occasionally, a film such as Malcolm D. Lee's The Best Man, which had a successful first week, will sneak into some 'black friendly' areas in the second week of release.
When The Best Man opened in New York at the same time as Scorsese's Bringing out the Dead, Lee's film won the box-office battle. 'When I made The Best Man, I was accused of creating a monster. The number of poor imitations that have popped up has made me think that maybe they were right. The film blew up, far more than I could imagine,' says Lee.
The films are also popular in the home entertainment arena. 'Most of the crossover audience occurs in the video market. White kids will rent a film on video but will not travel to see a black film in the cinema. They will rent out the films that have done well in theatres, which is why a good run is so important because a lot of money is made in the secondary video markets. If a black star has crossover appeal, they might eventually be propelled into the $20m-dollar a movie bracket,' says Spikes.
This year, Deliver us From Eva, starring rapper LL Cool J and Gabrielle Union, benefited from LL Cool J's wide fanbase. In the film, he makes a bet that he can stop Eva from meddling in the lives of her three brother-in-laws by making her fall in love with him. Despite poor reviews and box-office returns in February, the film shot up the video charts upon its release earlier this month. Other hip-hop musicians including Mos Def, DMX and Ice Cube have successfully moved into films. The 'rap pack' are eager to work on movies that will extend their careers, which means accepting roles that are more than just an extension of their streetwise image.
Like Brown Sugar, the music industry provides the backdrop to another eagerly awaited film, G, set in the Hamptons, which was inspired by The Great Gatsby. Blair Underwood stars as a hip-hop mogul who builds up a music empire to impress the posh college girl who rejected him 10 years earlier. On a less romantic note, Jamie Foxx will play a jilted boyfriend who writes a bestseller telling guys how to dump their girlfriends in The Break-Up Handbook.
But neither film has the crossover potential of The Fighting Temptations. In September, Beyonce Knowles, the lead singer of Destiny's Child, will star alongside Cuba Gooding Jr in the musical comedy. Gooding Jr plays a hip-hop producer who has to form a gospel choir in order to collect a sizable inheritance. This film is already being tipped to be the first black romantic comedy to take more than $100m at the US box office.
Opening night in Brooklyn should be something special.
· Brown Sugar opens in the UK on 18 July
Kaleem Aftab is writing Spike Lee on Spike Lee, which will be published by Faber next year
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
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