The hip-hop group N.W.A(Niggaz Wit Attitudes) consisting of Eric Wright (Eazy E) O’Shea Jackson (Ice Cube), Andre Young (Dr. Dre), Lorenzo Patterson (MC Ren) and Antoine Carraby (DJ Yella), managed to merge the things they saw going on in their neighborhood into the revolutionary music they created. Their biopic STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON chronicles their rise to fame and how they became the world’s most dangerous group. It is an exceptional entry into the biopic genre and is also one of the best films of 2015. As September 3rd 2015 STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON has been #1 at the box office for three weeks in a row. As a critic, the amount of money a film makes mean nothing to me because terrible films make a ton of money all the time. Kudos to Universal Studios for not only putting out a great product but also positioning that product which guaranteed its success. Though it would have been interesting to see the results had it opened against the disastrous FANTASTIC FOUR a week earlier, the filmed opened a week later on 8/14 against THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. and DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL. Opening against those films it was poised do well and do well it did grossing $60 million on its opening weekend.
The following week the film was competing against the stoner action-comedy AMERICAN ULTRA, the video-game turned film HITMAN: AGENT 47 and the horror sequel SINISTER 2, not exactly titles that people were rushing out to see. Add to the mix that SOC was receiving good critical buzz, word of mouth and most importantly no incidents of violence at any screenings across the country. Despite worries of violence that has plagued “hood/urban” movies in the past there have been no reports of violence at any showing of the film. Hollywood is scared of these types of movies because of the bad press that could follow if violence were to happen at a screening. It is an unfortunate reality that I have mention but that is the stigma these types of films have received in the past. All of the above mentioned factors helped the film reach a broader audience that does not necessarily meet the film’s targeted demographic. The competition in week three was not any stronger as it went up against the action film NO ESCAPE, indie drama MISTRESS AMERICA, the faith based WAR ROOM and the Zac Efron drama WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS. Have you seen any of those yet? Me neither and the rest of America has stayed away in droves. It was also up against the re-release of a little film called JURRASIC WORLD. JR made 3 million while SOC made 13 million which means the movie going public wanted gangstas over dinosaurs. For week four the film will be up against Robert Redford’s A WALK IN THE WOODS, the western JANE GOT A GUN, Lily Tomlin’s GRANDMA, the indie LEARNING TO DRIVE and the reboot THE TRANSPORTER REFULED. The only film in this bunch that might have a chance would be TTR but that is a long shot at best. The only film on the horizon that I see that will probably dethrone SOC is THE PEFECT GUY which will play to the Urban female target audience. Women generally go to the movies in groups so it would not surprise me if the film does well in its opening weekend.
****UPDATE**** As of 9/15/15 STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON was dethroned from the number one spot by the faith based film THE WAR ROOM and Robert Redford’s A WALK IN THE WOODS. The film does have the distinction of being the one of three films to be number one at the box office for more than two weeks in a row. FURIOUS 7 has 4 weeks and both AMERICAN SNIPER and STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON have three. Meanwhile THE PERFECT GUY opened September 11 finished first at the box office grossing $25.9 million on a budget of $12 million. The studio did not screen the film for critics prior to the release and has since received mostly negative reviews. tThere are no additional Urban films opening in 2016. ****END UPDATE****
I do not want to give the impression that the film has been universally praised because that is not the case. Some of the criticism given to the film is that it does not give a complete portrait of the group with several details, people and/or events being altered changed and left out completely. This happens with every bio-pic regardless of musical genre. SOC runs 2:24 which is actually quite long for any movie. Rumor has it there is a cut of the film that runs 3:30 so perhaps some of the “missing” material is within this cut. Time will tell if the cut sees the light of day. The films biggest detractors are Dee Barnes and Michel’le who have both experienced domestic violence at the hands of group member Dr. Dre. Michel’le has gone on record stating that Dr. Dre used to physically abuse her, including breaking her nose and ribs. Barnes was beat by Dre after her 1990 interview with Ice Cube discussed his leaving N.W.A. Dre later encountered Barnes at a record release party in Hollywood and picked her up by her hair and began slamming her head and the right side of her body repeatedly against a brick wall near the stairway as his bodyguard held off the crowd with a gun. After Dre tried to throw her down the stairs and failed, he began kicking her in the ribs and hands. She escaped and ran into the women’s rest room. Dre followed her and grabbed her from behind by the hair again and proceeded to punch her in the back of the head. Barnes filed assault charges and brought a $22.75 million lawsuit against Dr. Dre, who pleaded no contest to the assault. He was fined $2,500, placed on two years’ probation, and ordered to perform 240 hours of community service and produce an anti-violence public service announcement. The lawsuit was settled out of court. The events are not mentioned in the film. Dre has recently issued an apology and Apple, who Dre has a multi-billion dollar partnership has issues a statement backing him.
Now that the film has been a critical and box office success, I predict you will see a rise in quality of “urban/hood” (non-Tyler Perry) movies once again. There is money to be made and Hollywood sees a market that has been underrepresented at the cinema for far too long. Hollywood is reactionary and I’m sure studios are trying to “get the next STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON”. It doesn’t have to be a hip-hop biopic. I’m still waiting in on a Marvin Gaye film or Otis Redding biopic but that is another story. Remember BOYZ N THE HOOD in 1991? The critical and box office success of that film brought us the era of the “Hood” films. NEW JACK CITY (1991), JUICE (1992) SOUTH CENTRAL (1992) MENACE II SOCIETY (1993) POETIC JUSTICE (1993) ABOVE THE RIM (1994) JASON’S LYRIC (1994) CLOCKERS (1995) FRIDAY (1995), NEW JERSEY DRIVE and SET IT OFF (1996) were not as critically acclaimed as BITH but none would have been made without the existence of that film.
Friend of HillStreetViewz.blogspot.com writer, producer and director Alonzo Anderson has a different take on what the success of the film means. “How will it do internationally?” He asks “I am assuming it will do good numbers in those markets but, will it do big enough numbers to motivate Hollywood to invest in urban themed films WITHOUT a built in audience? Doubtful. Our films do HORRIBLE in the foreign markets which means that they have to do twice as well domestically to make up for the foreign shortfall. That’s hard to do. Not making this a racial thing, I’m making this a GREEN thing. In fact to date, SOC has done only 6M in the international market. That’s 4% of the total gross. This is not impressive to the bean counters I assume. Which kind of proves my point that black films don’t move the foreign market and have to do twice the business of non-black films domestically to be considered profitable. That’s why whenever there is a black themed film you will still have a name white actor in a lead or big featured role…for example; Name a Denzel Washington movie that did big numbers without a white co-lead… Malcolm X and DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS were GREAT films but none were huge financial successes, Sure the success of SOC will move the needle, but the bigger question is, will it be sustained? NO WAY… My project “THE RAPPER” is at Sony right now and just TWO days ago I got an email from them telling me that they are now “evaluating” it and they’ve had it for MONTHS. SOC will be seen by the Hollywood bean counters as a novelty or anomaly and not so much as the start of a trend. My opinion, hope I’m wrong. I mean, look at who was involved…two icons Dre and Cube produced it and white folks LOVE those dudes. The flick had a huge built in audience and was a can’t miss. Think about this, if Ren and Yella were the producers would it have gotten greenlit?? Nope!!.”
“Sadly…let’s just look at the recent history. 8 MILE did huge numbers and that was with a white lead and no hip-hop urban Renaissance occurred…why? Because Black audiences don’t support cinema, white audiences do. Period. I guarantee you that over 60 percent of the SOC business was white…you gotta think outside the box. Sure, the large markets, LA, New York, Atlanta, Chicago etc., probably did great urban business but what about the smaller less dense markets? White people PAY to see movies, Black people BOOTLEG movies…that’s just fact. I’m sorry. Hollywood knows this and that is why they don’t respect our market…we’re just gravy. Surely, the SOC results spurred that on but, will it get me greenlit? Doubt it… But alas, we only have ourselves to blame. GET ON UP was a flop and EVERYBODY loved James Brown. But nobody but HARDCORE music fans even know who Miles Davis is. Hell, even Black folks don’t care about Miles…same for Otis and Marvin…but, let em’ do an Amy Whitehouse or Kurt Cobain biopic (starring Channing Tatum or somebody like that) and that shit will get greenlit tomorrow. When I say that Blacks don’t care about Marvin etc., I’m talking about the younger generation just like they don’t respect Prince like we do. They don’t love them enough to pay to see a movie on their life. But NWA is different because of hip hop and the cultural longevity of Dre and Cube and Eazy…nobody knows who Ren and Yella were and the fact that they were marginalized in the film proves that. The fact that major R&B singers are inspired by Marvin is irrelevant because they aren’t who Hollywood needs to buy tickets and nobody is going to pay to see a Marvin biopic because Miguel was inspired by him. This is a NUMBERS game pure and simple. They don’t care about cultural significance. But SOC was a great film (despite that crappy third act) and I am so happy that it did strong business, but I seriously doubt that it will open more significant opportunities. NOTORIOUS flopped because Biggie was not big with white audiences. He was a legend to us but to the majority of White America he was just that fat black rapper who got shot. Whites go to the movies in droves and THEY drive the receipts, period. Black films get NO LOVE from the money players because they are simply not profitable UNLESS they have a built in audience that can crossover. Why else was JUDD NELSON on the one sheet for NEW JACK CITY? I have a film with one of the best, most recognizable young black actresses attached AND a talented director whose films have grossed over 100M worldwide BUT Hollywood will not green light this film until I am able to attach a marketable WHITE actress BUT I can’t attach a marketable white actress because their agents won’t let them read a script that is not funded no matter how good it is. This is what I have been told straight up. I would get money TODAY if I could get one white actress to say yes….she don’t even have to be any good, just white with a name. Why? Because you have to cater to white audiences because they PAY to see movies and black folks BOOTLEG. They drive the market. I repeat, I have been told this by more than one major studio. SOC plays to white audiences and that is why we are even having this discussion. I would LOVE to see the demographics on the film’s audience across the country…I’m willing to bet that it is well over 50 pct. White…you can’t do 75M with a majority black turnout…just ain’t happening…hope I’m wrong, but I’m probably not. Just sharing what I have learned dealing with the studios as a writer producer trying to get funded by any means necessary while maintaining my cultural integrity. #blackfilmsmatter”
Another friend HillStreetViewz.blogspot.com, actress Joi Liaye, says that “I have definitely seen an increase. Look on TV, and Black people are all over it. We are coming back on up…running our own shows. So the success of SOC proves once again that we are capable to make successful blockbusters. I am happy about all that I’ve seen around me lately as a Black girl. When I go into auditions nowadays, I feel like I have an upper hand because I AM Black. There was a time I didn’t feel this way. Times are definitely changing and coming back around again and I feel as though I have waaaaaay many more opportunities these days! And networks and films are waking up.
As active participants in the film industry I greatly respect both Alonzo’s and Joi’s insight, thoughts, and candor on this issue. It is my opinion that getting a film green lit is only half the battle. I see tons of films every year that are garbage and of course all of those films have been greenlit. 8 MILE did not play to an urban audience. I would venture a guess that Eminem’s audience is about 90% white and 10% black. GET ON UP was a flop in my opinion because it was a bad film. Period. I gave it thumbs down and I LOVE James Brown. But Black folks don’t care about Otis or Marvin?? I strongly disagree with that. There have been documentaries on both Amy Winehouse and Kurt Cobain but I still believe that other black films (not just biopics) can get greenlit and made based on the success of SOC. Alonzo’s project is getting more attention because of the SOC effect. Put Drake in the lead and the film would be greenlit in a hot second. Joi is also experiencing the SOC effect and hopefully this trend will continue especially since Tyler Perry is no longer making films. Maybe in 20 years there will be a list of films inspired by SOC that were inspired by BITH. SOC will be not only one of the best reviewed films of the year but also, based on budget, one of the biggest money earners of the year. Not bad for a movie about 5 N.W.A’s from Compton.
Special Thanks to Alonzo Anderson and Joi Liaye for their input to this article.
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