Jamie Foxx co-wrote, directed, and starred in the movie All-Star Weekend, but after it was originally scheduled for a Feb. 2018 release, the film continues to be shelved indefinitely.
The comedy, which features the story of two friends who are stalled by issues as they embark on a trip to the NBA All-Star Game, was filmed in 2016 with a cast that includes Jeremy Piven, Robert Downey Jr., Benicio del Toro, Gerard Butler and Eva Longoria. After failing to meet its initial target of a Feb. 2018 release, All-Star Weekend made it to post-production in Jan. 2019. Even though All-Star Weekend is now ready for theaters from a technical standpoint, Foxx recently told CinemaBlend that the current state of comedy has kept him from releasing it.
“It’s been tough with the lay of the land when it comes to comedy,” Foxx told CinemaBlend when asked when for an update on All-Star Weekend. “We’re trying to break open those sensitive corners where people go back to laughing again…We hope to keep them laughing and run them right into All-Star Weekend because we were definitely going for it.”
The “lay of the land” and “sensitive corners” surrounding comedy likely refers to Downey Jr. being cast as a Mexican for the film, a decision Foxx defended during a 2017 interview with Joe Rogan. Interestingly, the looming controversy of casting Downey as a Mexican mirrors the outcry Downey faced from his role in the 2008 comedy Tropic Thunder.
“I called Robert,” Foxx told Rogan. “I said, ‘I need you to play a Mexican.’ I said, ‘Shit, you played the Black dude [in Tropic Thunder] and you killed that shit.’ We got to be able to do characters.”
All-Star Weekend was never attached to a studio, but even as an independent film, just scrapping a completed project is a rarity. While Foxx certainly cited the state of comedy as a reason the movie has been indefinitely shelved, another issue is that All-Star Weekend could be dated as we get further removed from when it was filmed six years ago.
