First the Trailer, then the Feature
The shortest path to a feature film: make the trailer first.
The decision by Screen Gems to acquire “Sheneneh and Wanda” as a comic vehicle for Jamie Foxx and Martin Lawrence is the second recent example of a parody trailer serving as the springboard for a real film.
The Screen Gems deal, which calls for Foxx to write the script for a comic caper in which he and Lawrence play female characters they created way back to their stand up comedy days, came from a movie trailer for a film called "Skank Robbers," which Foxx and Lawrence made for the BET Awards. After the trailer, both Foxx and Lawrence were inundated with inquiries of whether the film was real, or whether it will happen. It has been fast tracked by Screen Gems president Clint Culpepper, with Foxx and Lawrence producing together.
This follows an even more unlikely parody trailer to feature transfer of "Machete," which stars Danny Trejo as the title character, a day laborer-turned vigilante. The trailer--which bore the now classic tag line "This time, they fucked with the wrong Mexican"--was directed by Robert Rodriguez as one of the many mock trailers for the Rodriguez-Quentin Tarantino double feature "Grindhouse."
The trailer broadened into an indie film--financed by companies like Overnight and Hyde Park--that Rodriguez directed with protege Ethan Maniquis, and a cast that includes Trejo in the title role, Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Lindsay Lohen, Cheech Marin, Steven Seagal, Rose McGowan and Don Johnson.
It gives the biggest career opportunity yet for Trejo, a former hard guy who logged prison time before turning his life around as a drug counsellor. He got discovered on a movie set--pic was set in a prison--where he went there to help a PA stay clean, and Trejo has been acting in movies ever since. Trejo has used his platform--he's a hero in the Latino community for his work in films like "Heat"--to give lectures to young kids headed towards trouble. Between jobs, Trejo also still works construction jobs, and is not above signing his work, when asked, which happens often.
The decision by Screen Gems to acquire “Sheneneh and Wanda” as a comic vehicle for Jamie Foxx and Martin Lawrence is the second recent example of a parody trailer serving as the springboard for a real film.
The Screen Gems deal, which calls for Foxx to write the script for a comic caper in which he and Lawrence play female characters they created way back to their stand up comedy days, came from a movie trailer for a film called "Skank Robbers," which Foxx and Lawrence made for the BET Awards. After the trailer, both Foxx and Lawrence were inundated with inquiries of whether the film was real, or whether it will happen. It has been fast tracked by Screen Gems president Clint Culpepper, with Foxx and Lawrence producing together.
This follows an even more unlikely parody trailer to feature transfer of "Machete," which stars Danny Trejo as the title character, a day laborer-turned vigilante. The trailer--which bore the now classic tag line "This time, they fucked with the wrong Mexican"--was directed by Robert Rodriguez as one of the many mock trailers for the Rodriguez-Quentin Tarantino double feature "Grindhouse."
The trailer broadened into an indie film--financed by companies like Overnight and Hyde Park--that Rodriguez directed with protege Ethan Maniquis, and a cast that includes Trejo in the title role, Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Lindsay Lohen, Cheech Marin, Steven Seagal, Rose McGowan and Don Johnson.
It gives the biggest career opportunity yet for Trejo, a former hard guy who logged prison time before turning his life around as a drug counsellor. He got discovered on a movie set--pic was set in a prison--where he went there to help a PA stay clean, and Trejo has been acting in movies ever since. Trejo has used his platform--he's a hero in the Latino community for his work in films like "Heat"--to give lectures to young kids headed towards trouble. Between jobs, Trejo also still works construction jobs, and is not above signing his work, when asked, which happens often.
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