Big Screen Little Screen

More from Hustle and Flow director Craig Brewer, just mentioned as planning a biopic on country singer Charley Pride with Hustle star Terrance Howard. In an interview with The Memphis Flyer, Brewer discussed the decision to delay the release of his most recent project, Black Snake Moan (Samuel L. Jackson, Christina Ricci) until February. Citing September as a lousy month to release films, and the fact that he wanted to give Samuel L. Jackson ample breathing room in the press after Snakes on a Plane, the director also highlights the difficulties in marketing a film that defies contemporary comparison. “They do this thing out there called running the numbers, where they want to know if there are other movies out there like yours so they can gauge how to market it,” said Brewer. “There just haven’t been many buddy movies that have my premise of a black bluesman trying to chase the demons out of a white sex addict.”

Other topics of discussion in the interview - Brewer mentions his new production company, Southern Crosses the Dog, with projects in works for both Country Music Television and BET (flexing his range), scripts in the works for Maggie Lynn, scheduled to begin shooting next summer, a few Memphis-centric projects, regarding it’s rich music scene, and another based on the historic sanitation worker strike in 1968 that became a central part of the civil rights movement. Last but not least from Brewer, something that Terrance Howard has been talking up since late last year - the possibility for two sequels to his breakout hit:

So what’s the story on the Hustle & Flow 2 rumor that’s out there? Is that really happening?

Yeah. It’s not something that I’m going to be doing right now, but after Hustle & Flow came out one of the questions I kept getting asked was, did DJay become a star? And I said, oh no, no no. But after the movie came out, I started thinking about it. And I dreamt the sequel and a third movie on a plane ride. It was very clear in my mind when I landed.

Have you put pen to paper on those?

Yeah, I’ve got them outlined. I’ll go ahead and tell you the names, the temporary names. The second one is called The Chitlin’ Circuit and the third one is called Platinum and Gold. The second one is all about the struggle to get your single played, touring on buses and dealing with disc jockeys and other rappers on the bus trying to do the same thing and how cutthroat that music industry is.

Would making those movies be contingent on Terrence Howard continuing in the DJay role?

Uh, yeah. If Terrence doesn’t want to do it, then I’m not going to do it. Terrence and I, right now, are trying to figure out what we want to do next with each other. We’re exploring a Charley Pride movie. A lot of people don’t know that Terrence is a big country fan. He doesn’t really like rap.

Black Snake Moan is slated for a February 23rd release date:

Source: The Memphis Flyer - Catching Up With Craig Brewer

Tags: craig brewer, black snake moan, hustle and flow