Ok, so this is almost pure speculation at this point but Idris Elba, best recognized as Stringer Bell on The Wire
but has been making a case for A-list recognition in movies like Thor and Obsessed
, tweeted some pretty interesting things this weekend..."Having one of the biggest meetings of my professional life today...meeting a very controversial director for a very controversial part. :-/"
"I wish I could tell you more but...in due time...any way ..WHA A GWAN?( What's going on? For those that don't speak patwah)"
"On the plane to the destination of my fate.....ok.... a lil dramatic....destination of my life..?"
So let's think for a second. Controversial director...controversial part....ummmm..Is there a Soul Plane
sequel script lurking around out there that I don't know about? Probably not. This sounds like it could be Quentin Tarantino's racially charged Western, Django Unchained, doesn't it? What other major African-American roles could possibly fit the bill? Other than the proposed Martin Luther King film that's being put together, but that doesn't have a director attached yet and even so it's doubtful he'd be very controversial. That pretty much only leaves Django. That begs the question: What happened to Will Smith? Quentin Tarantino was especially gung-ho for getting Smith to star in the film, about a slave who teams up with a German bounty hunter(rumored to be Christoph Waltz) to exact bloody revenge on his former slave master and rescue his wife. Sony Pictures, which has long been the home of most Smith flicks, was basically handed foreign distribution rights as a means of luring him into the film. But if all this turns out to be true that Elba is meeting for Django, then it's likely that Smith didn't want to tarnish his good image in a film that promises to be especially violent and will rub some folks the wrong way.
I never really thought Smith would take on a film like this. It's too big of a departure and he'd have to give up his hefty salary to do it. I'd much rather see someone like Michael Jai White(Spawn
), who has the physicality and the charisma a role like this demands. But if it does turn out to be Elba, it would be a damn sight better than the Fresh Prince.
