Black historical stories are not and should not be uniformly depressing stories that you “must see” instead of want to see. Here’s a list of five of my projects that will entertain the hell out of you while you learn stories you need to know. 1. MARSHALL I always placed…
+ Read MoreKevin C. Johnson | St. Louis Dispatch St. Louis International Film Festival closes out its annual event with a celebration Nov. 19 at the Hi-Pointe Theatre. A Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to veteran Hollywood figure and East St. Louis native Reginald Hudlin. Cinema St. Louis executive director Bree…
+ Read MoreThree movies directed by Reginald Hudlin are streaming on Netflix this September: HOUSE PARTY The original stands the test of time! MARSHALL Great performances by Sterling K. Brown, Josh Gad, Kate Hudson and the late great Chadwick Boseman! and THE BLACK GODFATHER. The true story of the Master of the…
+ Read MoreReginald Hudlin Sun, Mar 21, 2021 https://www.movie-expo.com/event-info SPEAKER INFO: REGINALD HUDLIN, Writer, Producer, Director, Executive Oscar and Emmy nominated producer and director Reginald Hudlin is one of the most influential filmmakers of his generation. Hudlin’s latest directorial effort is SAFETY, a sports drama that just debuted on Disney Plus and is…
+ Read MoreAnd Tarantino said: ‘Black and brown come together.’ Reggie Hudlin on a comic book’s birth By David Betancourt February 5 at 10:00 PM Django/Zorro. (courtesy of Dynamite Comics) Overseeing historic moments involving heroes of color is nothing new for Reggie Hudlin. From his five-year run writing Black Panther for Marvel…
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Are you up on the DJANGO comic book series? There’s so much cool stuff in the books not seen the film. Order all seven issues at www.reggiesworld.com!
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No Comments + Read MoreI haven’t had a chance to post this Django interview until now, and while I liked the finished product, the whole interview should appear somewhere someday. It was good stuff. I got a few folks to laugh, cry, and rethink the whole black image question. Only a little of that is in this version.
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Did you know that the first issue of the DJANGO comic book has gone into its THIRD printing? Did you know you can order AUTOGRAPHED copies of the first three issues at www.reggiesworld.com? Well, now you do so order yours TODAY!
Talk about it on HEF – the Hudlin Entertainment Forum
No Comments + Read MoreHere’s a wonderful article profiling me in the Wall Street Journal. The Journal did a really important story on me at the beginning of my career before the launch of HOUSE PARTY, so their support means a lot to me.
By A.D. Pruitt
February 16, 2013
Reginald Hudlin has been a player in the entertainment world for over 20 years, but on Feb. 24 Hudlin will have his first shot at winning an Oscar as one of the producers for “Django Unchained.” The Quentin Tarantino-directed film starring Jamie Foxx as a renegade slave turned bounty hunter is nominated for Best Picture, making Hudlin just the fourth African- American producer to receive such a nod.
Hudlin, former president of entertainment for Black Entertainment Television, is a prolific writer, director and producer for TV and film with much of his creative work touching on African-American-themed projects. He is best known for his debut film “House Party” that starred hip-hop duo Kid ‘n Play and directing such hits as “Boomerang” with Eddie Murphy and Halle Berry.
So, it was little surprise that Tarantino picked Hudlin’s brain more than a decade ago about how to make a movie about American slavery. “We were having a long conversation about slave movies and I stated my opinion that most of them don’t work because they’re more focused on victimology,” said Hudlin in a phone interview with The Wall Street Journal. “I wanted to see people who fought back; the equivalent of Spartacus in an Antebellum context.”
Hudlin said he had forgotten about that conversation until Tarantino called him up with a script and said “look you planted the seed and this is the tree.”
Not everyone, however, appreciates what “Django” has grown into. While the film’s has had critical and commercial success, it has also sparked fierce criticism from black intellectuals and artists including film director Spike Lee who told “Vibe” magazine he wouldn’t see the movie because “it’s disrespectful to my ancestors.” As the sole black producer on Django, Hudlin shares his views about the criticism, the state of black Hollywood and if a “Django” sequel is in the works.
How did Tarantino bring on you as a producer?
He called (me) over the house handed me the script. I told him how much I loved it and he asked me if I had any notes. I shared with him my thoughts…and then I wished him good luck. Then he said…we need to do this one together. We had never worked together before, but it was an exciting prospect. I knew this was an important movie. So, three days later we’re meeting with studios. A week after that, we’re scouting locations in Louisiana.
When you read the script did you think this was going to be a land mine for criticism particularly with the violence and the use of the “N-word”?
I thought that the movie was powerful. Of course, it was going to be controversial. There’s so few stories made about black people that each film takes on an inordinate amount of importance …particularly in this period of our history.
Black people have not come to terms with how to deal with this most painful part of our past. You look at the Jewish community….they take the Holocaust, the most painful part of their heritage [and] their attitude is: we will never forget and we will take strength from this, we would never let the world forget. The black community has not come to that same kind of consensus.
How do you think this film changes the conversation?
First of all, there is a conversation. There weren’t people sitting around talking about slavery a year ago. People were talking about “Basketball Wives.” The very fact that people are talking about slavery, depictions of our history, researching different real life characters…is for the good.
Were you surprised by the acclaim “Django” has received?
I always felt very confident [with] the material. It was a great script, Quentin is a great director. We had a dream cast. Every day on the set, magic happened.
“Django” has been characterized as a Spaghetti Western. I thought it was also made in the spirit of the blaxploitation movies of the 1970s.
The phrase blaxploitation film is an unfortunate slur that has stuck on that period of movies. I think what defines those films are strong Black people who stand up for what they believe in and fight back. The fact we’ve never had as many images of strong black men and women since that period is criminal.
Tell me about your comic book series based on the characters from “Django.”
It’s really exciting because it’s based on the original script. We’re not just drawing the movie, we’re including all these scenes which may have been shot, but cut or maybe never shot at all. And the artist who’s drawing the books hasn’t seen the film yet. He’s doing his own version of the characters which sometimes look very different from the actors we cast.
Do you foresee a “Django” sequel?
I promised Quentin I would not harass him about a sequel for another six months. I know that Quentin has never done a sequel and it’s sort of torturous because he has fantastic ideas for sequels for almost all of his films. I have to presume there will not be a sequel, but I don’t have to accept it.
What do you think about the state of black Hollywood now?
The fact is things are much better. There are black actors in many more TV shows and movies than ever before. You can’t say there isn’t improvement in terms of more opportunity. I think what people continue to be frustrated about is the range of representation.
What do you think “Django’s” legacy will be?
Not only is “Django” Quentin’s biggest hit, it’s on its way to being the biggest western of all time. To say the biggest western of all time stars Jamie Foxx is an amazing statement.
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No Comments + Read MoreBy Joseph Hughes for Comics Alliance
Reginald Hudlin has worn a lot of hats. He’s been a producer, comic writer, and director, amongst other work. Recently, Hudlin’s applied two of those skills to one project, as both a producer on Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained and, as it turns out, the writer who’s adapting the film into a miniseries for DC Comics, along with artist R.M. Guera.
ComicsAlliance had a chance to speak with Hudlin about writing the Django Unchained comic, talking comics with Tarantino, and the very real possibility of Kill Bill someday being adapted as a comic as well.
ComicsAlliance: Talk a bit about how this comic came about. It’s meant to include things that were cut from the final film. What made you, director Quentin Tarantino, and everyone else behind the decision come to the conclusion that a comic adaptation was the right way to tell this story in full?
Reginald Hudlin: Well, it always seemed a little odd to me that Quentin had never done anything in the comic book medium, you know? He’s such a fan, and we spend a lot of time talking about comic books. He likes to publish his screenplays as written, with no photographs, no images, so they kind of stand alone as a piece of literature. But given how many changes we were making to the screenplay while we were making the movie, because we’d say "Oh, this actor has a new idea," or "Quentin has a new idea," or something with the location, and we’d kind of change things around. And then of course with the movie we had to cut a lot of things just to get it to the 2 hours and 45 minutes that it was, so we had to cut a lot of scenes that were our favorite material. So the idea of doing a comic book that had all that original stuff just seemed like a good idea. It seemed like a good extra bonus for readers.
CA: Like you said, Tarantino hasn’t done comics before, and you were surprised by that, but you obviously have.
RH: Yeah, I mean, it’s cool. I’ve done them before, but he’s very comic book literate [laughs]. And the same way that we would spend hours discussing obscure movies and obscure TV shows, we would also discuss obscure comic books. Not just Marvel and DC, but Gold Key, Charlton, Dell, you know. We would go deep in the stacks as we talked about comics [laughs]. So it just seemed crazy to me that he had never done this. So I just said "Look, this is for you, this is your world. You need to be here." And when he was flipping through the pages of the first issue, he was just so happy, and he turned to me and said "I can’t believe we’ve never done this before." And I said "Yeah, can you imagine a Kill Bill comic! That’d be pretty cool."
CA: It’s not too late. I’m just putting that out there…
RH: No, no, it’s not too late! I promised him that going forward we would make sure that this oversight would never happen again. I’ll have to take a hard look at going back to some of those classics and maybe revisiting those as well.
CA: Again, you have experience writing comics, with your run on Marvel’s Black Panther and your work on the graphic novel Birth of a Nation. But this was adapting a screenplay into comic form. How has this experience been different from your previous comic work?
RH: The trick is, you know, when you read a Quentin Tarantino screenplay, you see the movie in your head. That’s one of the reasons why he’s not just a great screenwriter. The prose really sings on the page. So the trick is, he’s writing something incredibly cinematic, and so you’re taking something that’s very cinematic, and you have to translate it into another medium, this comic book medium. And there are certain things you can’t do. When he invokes that camera move in your head, well, you know we don’t quite have camera moves in comics. A character can’t nod his head, so he has to verbalize what he’s saying. You don’t have music and sound effects as tools in your toolbox. But that said, sometimes removing tools from your toolbox can increase your storytelling strength, because you have to say "Okay, well, how do I convey this idea?" So the challenge is exciting.
CA: You’re working with R.M. Guera, a very accomplished artist who previously worked on Scalped, a comic that, like Django Unchained, is partially inspired by Spaghetti Westerns. What’s it been like working with him? Were you familiar with his work before this collaboration?
RH: Oh, absolutely! I’m a huge, huge fan of Scalped. It’s a brilliant comic, brilliantly written and brilliantly drawn. We had a number of artists who were interested in the job, and when [Tarantino] picked Guera I was very excited. I think that having the right artist is a huge part of the job. You can just go "Okay, well, if I’ve got a script by Quentin Tarantino and art by R.M. Guera, there’s very little I can do wrong!" [Laughs].
CA: There’s been a lot of critical and commercial success with the film, but there’s been some controversy behind it as well, due to the violence, the language and the subject matter. Has that in any way shaped how you’ve gone forward in working on the comic?
RH: No. Well, first of all, I was working on the comic while we were still shooting the movie. And secondly, we made the decision really early on to make the comic book be the comic book, which is different from the movie. If anything the idea is that people can read the comic, they can see the movie, they can see what we changed, what we left out, what we kept in, and they can decide for themselves if those choices were good or not. We want people to look at the text and really think about those choices and go "Wow I’m glad they took that out, they didn’t need that," or "Man, I wish they had put that thing in!" That part of the discussion is great.
CA: Your name isn’t in the first issue, and the fact that you’re the one writing the adaption is just coming out now. Was there anything specific behind that decision? Was it just a timing issue?
RH: It was just a crazy time. We were finishing the movie and trying to get the book out, you know, so the last thing I was thinking about was credit! For me, it’s Quentin’s story and it’s Guera’s art, and that’s kind of what was important to me. And the folks at DC said "You know, could we tell people that you’re writing this thing?" [Laughs] And I just said "Okay, if you really want." That really wasn’t what was important to me, but our partners asked and I just said "Sure!"
CA: Have there been scenes you find are easier or more difficult to translate into a comic?
RH: Again, it’s pretty easy. I mean, the thing about this kind of adaptation work is really that you learn a script in an incredibly intimate way. It’s kind of like doing a cover version of someone’s song. You really go "Oh, I see how well this is constructed." And that’s the fun of working on it, particularly after being deep in shooting and revisiting some of those dialogue changes and scenes that were left out. We knew why we had to make cuts – the movie is pretty long even in this version. But it’s great to revisit some of those little scenes and go "Man, this is good stuff. This is really, really good stuff." [Laughs]
CA: Any hints as to what we can expect to see that isn’t in the film?
RH: Well, you know, every actor kind of has some of their favorite moments that have to go away for the greater good of the film. But I know Sam Jackson and Jamie Foxx and Kerry Washingtong and Christoph Waltz all had some of their favorite moments not make it. It’s a shame we don’t get to see all of their magnificent performances because they were great every day all day. But at least you get to see a hint of some of the great work they delivered throughout the filming in some medium. I know Sam is a big comic fan himself. We run into each other at Golden Apple on occasion. And he was one to say "Hurry up and get to my scene!" [Laughs]
CA: I’ve heard Samuel L. Jackson is a comic fan, so did he – or anyone else in the cast – come up to you at any point and say "Hey, I know this got cut, so you better put it in the comic!"
RH: [Laughs] No pressure! But I’m always proud that I’m the guy who told Sam "Go to the store and grab The Ultimates because you’re in it!"
CA: Ha! You were the one who first told him that?
RH: Oh yeah. So, you know, we have a great comic book relationship!
Django Unchained #1 is on sale now in your local comic shop and is available digitally from Comixology. Issue #2 will be available February 13th.
To order a signed copy of the DJANGO UNCHAINED comic book go to www.reggiesworld.com!
Talk about it on HEF – the Hudlin Entertainment Forum
No Comments + Read MoreThis is different clips of me talking about DJANGO that I found online.
Talk about it on HEF – the Hudlin Entertainment Forum
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