AICN's Russ Sheath talks with Black Dynamite himself, Michael Jai White, about how you can get involved in his new fan-funded movie, ‘The Outlaw Johnny Black’.
Having been caught up in the Image comic craze of the early 90s, I was (and still am) a huge Todd McFarlane and ‘Spawn’ fan. So, when ‘Spawn the Movie’ came out in 1997, like many others I was introduced to the talents of actor, Michael Jai White.
Of course, Michael had been in many projects prior to Spawn and had quickly became an action star in his own right, starring in the likes of the ‘Universal Soldier’ sequel, a sadly deleted sequence in Tarrantino’s ‘Kill Bill’, ‘The Dark Knight’ and ‘Arrow’, amongst many, many others.
While a renowned action movie star and accomplished martial artist, for me the undisputed highlight of White’s career has been the 2009 cult blaxploitation parody ‘Black Dynamite’.
Having recently announced the formation of his own production company ‘Jaigantic Entertainment’, Michael Jai White is currently working on the second in an intended blaxploitation trilogy, ‘The Outlaw Johnny Black’, reuniting the cast of Black Dynamite and offering fans the opportunity to get involved via Indigogo - the crowdfunding platform.
From the Budapest set of his latest movie, I spoke with Michael Jai White about Black Dynamite, Spawn, his reaction to ‘Black Panther’ and how you can get involved in bringing The Outlaw Johnny Black to the screen.
Russ Sheath (RS): Hello Sir, how are you and how is the movie going?
Michael Jai White (MJW): I’m great. It’s kind of a blizzard here right now, but the movie’s going good. It’s an action movie and one of your countrymen Luke Goss, is in it with me and we are teaming up to fight the bad guys. This is the second movie I’ve done with Luke and I imagine it will be out at the end of the year, something like that.
RS: So, we are talking about The Outlaw Johnny Black. What can you tell us about the project, how it came together and how it’s coming to crowdfunding?
MJW: I wanted to do a parody of the blaxploitation era and I have this idea of three movies. The first was a Shaft or Superfly type of thing with Black Dynamite and the next was a western in the tradition of ‘Buck and The Preacher’ and some of the great westerns of that time. The third movie is going to be in the horror genre of the 70s.
RS: What is it about that era of film making that interests you?
MJW: When movies were done in the 70s it encapsulated a very special time and there’s something about capturing the period that is special to me. It’s the same with how the Duffer Brothers have captured the 80s with ‘Stranger Things’. You have no choice but to relive your memories from back then and I tried to capture that with Black Dynamite.
I love westerns, and this is a unique way to do that again, in this style.
RS: It’s interesting that Black Dynamite took a cult period of cinema and has become a cult movie itself. There’s a meta thing going on there.
MJW: Right. We literally captured what was special about that time. Again, I point to the Duffer Brothers and Stranger Things where they captured what was special about that time, what was unique and that we haven’t seen since. I’ve seen period pieces where a lot of times you know they are contemporarily shot and you sometimes miss the nuances of the time when they were new. I really want to preserve that aspect too.
RS: There’s a lot of continuity from Black Dynamite to The Outlaw Johnny Black.
MJW: Something that was super close to me as a child was Monty Python and for me, some of the funniest movies of all time are the Monty Python movies where from ‘Holy Grail’ to ‘Life of Brian’, you have the same core group. In a sense it’s the same here and that same core family from Black Dynamite you’ll see in this movie. You’ll notice that the preacher in The Outlaw Johnny Black trailer is the same guy who played Bullhorn in Black Dynamite.
In the three parodies, and if folks remember ‘Blacula’ that will give you a bit of a hint to the third one, there is a core group which keeps expanding.
RS: Tell us about the crowd funding aspect of The Outlaw Johnny Black.
MJW: I owe a great deal to the audience as they are the ones who made Black Dynamite a cult hit, because of word of mouth. And, even though I had several offers to fully finance this movie, I wanted to open it up to get the crowd involved first and take that devoted crowd along for the ride this time.
A lot of times with crowd funding, they get up to budget but that’s it until the movie comes out. I want to keep the funders involved throughout the whole project and to offer things to them that will be collector’s items. We have belt buckles, bullets with your name on, contests, people can even get a walk on role or name the horse that I ride. This is the kind of movie to open up and have some fun with, and you can’t do what with many movies.
I want to personally thank the audience that made Black Dynamite a success and I want this to be the start of a continuing connection with the audience. With a lot of movies nowadays, you are seeing very low budget movies and then these huge tentpole movies, but I feel they are starting to lose those middle ground movies that you can watch over and over again and still feel like you are experiencing something. I want to be in the business of making classics and have people feel the pride of being involved in them with me.
RS: Is crowd funding the sole model you are looking at for your studio?
MJW: It’s this particular movie. I have other movies which already have their funding, but they don’t lend to the fan involvement like this one does. Outlaw Johnny Black is all about fun and even for those major actors who are coming to work on this, it about fun, it’s not about the money. When we were shooting Black Dynamite, there were actors who hung around, even after they completed their roles, just because it was fun.
It’s great to be able to share and show how much fun it is to work on a movie. We actors make a bond that lasts a lifetime, even on this movie I’m working on today, I’ll never forget working on and that great energy, it’s a real cool thing to be involved in.
RS: So, for Outlaw Johnny Black, the movie goes ahead, and pledgers get their rewards, irrespective of the funding aspect hitting the target?
MJW: Absolutely! We call it ‘fan funding’ and what makes it so different is the funding stays open. Every few weeks we’ll have something different and the website will go on well after the movie is in the theatre.
I’ll be damned if I’m not going to go the audience with this movie. I want to go out with the cast and have VIP screenings for those who have donated, it’s really about the experience and if it works, more movies can be done this way. It’s a movie that I don’t mind bringing the audience to get a glimpse of behind the scenes.
This is something that I wanted to experiment with and it’s really about the audience and getting them involved. It’s a grand experiment and a thank you, because I appreciate the audience putting me where I am.
Anybody who knows about Black Dynamite, they know it wasn’t because it was propped up by the studio, it’s success was because of word of mouth. People were proud to say ‘hey, you’ve gotta see this movie’. The movie didn’t go away, and it spawned the cartoon series as well.
I have a number of strong projects in the waiting, but this is the one I wanted to do. I’d intended to do this a few years after Black Dynamite, but my team mate, co-writer and co-star Byron Minns, we crafted this a while ago, but now we have a chance to do it.
RS: Even though the movie isn’t made, you already put out a trailer, how did you manage that?
MJW: People thought the teaser for Outlaw Johnny Black was actually for a sequel for Black Dynamite or are under the impression that the movie is already done because they look at the trailer and it looks like a completed movie, but it’s not. The trailer was a one-day shoot and I designed it to look like the movie had been made already.
RS: That’s amazing.
MJW: If that’s what a trailer looks like that was shot in just one day, just imagine what the movie is going to look like, with all these cameos from major people that you know. It’s giving just a little glimpse of what’s to come.
RS: What else can you tell us about the project, at this stage?
MJW: I’ve got one of the great musical talents in the world working on the soundtrack already. He’s created close to ten songs and his name’s Michael Bearden and was the musical director for Michael Jackson’s ‘This Is It’. He’s worked with Madonna, Lady Gaga and he’s loving working on this project. Some of these people are giants in the movie industry and I’m so blessed that they want to come out and work on this movie. I’m overwhelmed by it.
I’ve got major A-list actors who are signing up for Outlaw Johnny Black and I’m dying to mention them, but I want the people who are supporting the movie to be the first to know, so I’m creating a club, so to speak. I want to give people an experience.
RS: As a fan, I have to take this opportunity to ask you about Spawn. Last year was the 20th anniversary of ‘Spawn The Movie’. How do you look back on that movie, particularly where we had Spawn as the first major superhero movie to feature a black lead character and now we have the huge event of The Black Panther having impacted in so many ways?
MJW: I’m flattered to be spoken about in the same breath. Black Panther has proven that it’s all about great characters and great movie making and that it’s not really about colour.
I love that they dared to do a great movie that happened to star people of colour and really that’s the important thing. I am so happy that there are children who can see their image portrayed in such a grand fashion and feel that there’s nothing wrong with that. In the same way there’s no black child that doesn’t feel that they can’t become President. I am super happy and proud of that movie. It’s a movie that can fill everybody with pride, worldwide.
RS: Having done your fair share of super hero projects, is the Marvel universe something you’d like to be involved in at some point?
MJW: I want to do good stuff, I don’t care what it is, Marvel, DC it can be anything – it’s all about stuff that speaks to me. If it’s something that comes to me, that people feel I’d be a good addition to and where I feel it would be a good symbiosis, I’d be involved.
RS: Hopefully we’ll see you in a Marvel film one day, that would be amazing. Michael, a huge thank you for your time today, it’s been a pleasure.
MJW: Thank you.
So, there you have it, a huge thank you to Michael Jai White for his time in speaking with me.
This is an awesome, unique opportunity to be part of the movie making process on a film bought to you by the team behind Black Dynamite. Check out the trailer and the website to see how you can get involved.
Check out the crowd funding video and trailer for ‘Outlaw Johnny Black’ here…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN-6X64dWiQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-EjKaez1bo
And visit the funding site here….
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-outlaw-johnny-black-movie-action#/
