Red Tails Draws in $20 Million Opening Weekend

By Naomi Bonman
IVN Staff Writer

UPLAND, CA- George Lucas’ movie Red Tails challenged wisdom and diminished the expectations of Hollywood and came in number two in the box office this week grossing $19.1 Million.

Red Tails is a significant film in several ways. For one it has a very historical background about the Tuskegee Airman, American’s first black fighter pilots who fought with bravery and distinction during World War II.

The next is that the cast was all Black, but because of this Hollywood producers refused to fund it; therefore, Lucas invested $58 million of his own money to make and distribute the film because he believed in it.

The movie took Lucas 23 years to make, but all of his work definitely paid off. Moviegoers from all across the country enjoyed the film. District resident and global marketing and sales executive, Leo Alexander stated that he loved what he saw, “The movie was very well done.”

Some moviegoers loved the movie so much that they went back and seen Red Tails several times.
“It was fabulous enough for me to go see it every night next week,” said Silver Spring, Md., resident Deborah Stepp. “The fact is I know about the Tuskegee Airmen and have heard about them all my life so just to see the story was fabulous. It didn’t bother me who the executive producer of the movie was; just for someone to write the story and get it produced, that means George Lucas has an interest in our history. That’s what we’re trying to do American history, not just Black history.”
This isn’t the end of significant movies; Lucas plans to produce a trilogy of stories on the airmen. He stated that the story portrayed in the movie needed to be made, and Lane Wallace, a columnist for The Atlantic Magazine, agreed.
“I understand why George Lucas became so passionate about telling the story of the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II … both the story, and the Tuskegee pilots themselves, are extraordinary,” Lane said. “At the beginning of World War II, blacks were not allowed to serve as pilots in the military. A 1925 U.S. Army War College report had gone so far as deeming them not just inferior, but also incapable of operating complex machinery. But the country desperately needed more pilots. So a small training program for black pilots was initiated at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. It was called the “Tuskegee Experiment” because the Air Corps brass fully expected the men in the program—many of whom were college-educated and quite accomplished—to fail. Some of the early white instructors in the program, in fact, tried to make sure that outcome came to pass.”
With the number of people, not to just Blacks but every race, going to support Red Tails means that it can be the start to change. Hopefully in due time, Hollywood will see the impact that this film made and want to fund other black cast movies. This should also encourage people to not just support Black films, but Black businesses as well.