S. Samuel
Brooklyn's Finest director Antoine Fuqua hit up SOHH to discuss tapping Wesley Snipes to star in his film and share his reaction to its recent box office success.
Fuqua says he understood the risks which came with recruiting Snipes who has battled various tax-related charges in recent years.
“I used to hear people say negative sh*t about him, and this cat’s a ‘real’ actor, he’s a good brother and he deserves to be up on the big screen because we need him up there,” Fuqua told SOHH. “And he deserves for us to rally around him. It’s not like he murdered somebody, or did anything crazy, this whole country’s broke right now, so who knows what the issues were. I wanted him in the movie and I made sure that happened. Everyone was afraid — that the sheriff would come and take him off my set and then you spend two, three million dollars for these scenes and certain scenes, you gotta re-shoot them all. That’s gonna be a huge disaster. So producers were nervous about that but I said you know what, at some point you just gotta take a chance man and I backed this dude up and we’ll deal with that if it happens. Luckily, everybody rolled with me — it was just a little reminder, here’s a great actor out here. Don’t forget this cat. That’s really what I was doing, just a taste.” (SOHH)
Snipes recently spoke on his “comeback” onto the big screen in Brooklyn’s Finest.
“If they call it a comeback and we can do more of these, that’s great, I’m with it 100 percent,” Snipes said in an interview. “I’ll still do action every now and then, and do some comedy as well — keep it mixed. I’m elated to be in a good quality product and a good quality project and associated with quality actors and quality work. I appreciate that. I love doing drama and I love doing ensemble work.” (MTV)
The director also shared his reaction to the film’s box office sales after opening with $12 million earlier this month.
“It’s gratifying,” he added about the film’s success. “I was on [this project] for two years, maybe a little bit more and normally I do studio movies so this is a gimme and I had full creative control going in it and so after Sundance and all of that — having Oveture [Films] being behind it and the response its been getting has been real real positive, the majority of it and the movie is doing well, making money, $17 million movie. I feel good about it, man, I’ve been blessed because it could have went the other way and got ugly.” (SOHH)
The film reportedly banked around $4.3 million over the weekend.
1. Alice in Wonderland, $62 million 2. The Green Zone, $14.5 million 3. She’s Out of My League, $9.6 million 4. Remember Me, $8.3 million 5. Shutter Island, $8.1 million 6. Our Family Wedding, $7.6 million 7. Avatar, $6.6 million 8. Brooklyn’s Finest, $4.3 million 9. Cop Out, $4.2 million 10. The Crazies, $3.7 million (Just Jared)
Check out a trailer for Brooklyn’s Finest below:
