Update: Yahoo has dropped the trailer for the film and you know? It doesn’t look half bad. The dramatic stuff seems a bit familiar if slightly overcooked, but the aerial battles look damn impressive and pretty thrilling. Check it out below.
After some bumps in the road and a few delays, the George Lucas-produced WWII film “Red Tails” is hitting theaters in January as was rumored last month, with an official date of January 20, 2012 now on the calendar.
Starring a huge cast consisting of Terrence Howard, NeYo, Andre Royo, Nate Parker, David Oyelowo, Cuba Gooding Jr., Bryan Cranston, Method Man, Tristan Wilds, Kevin Phillips, Rick Otto, Lee Tergesen, Elijah Kelley, Marcus T. Paulk, Leslie Odom Jr., Michael B. Jordan, Jazmine Sullivan, Edwina Finley, Daniela Ruah and Stacie Davis, the film tells the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the legendary group of African-American combat pilots in World War II. The production had access to mission logbooks and were able to interview surviving members of the original group of pilots, so hopefully this will find Lucas indulging something other than his CGI muscles. Anthony Hemingway (”The Wire,” “Treme”) directed the film and the project got some slight (undue) controversy when Lucas himself took over on reshoots (though it was quickly revealed that nothing more than boring old “scheduling conflicts” prevented Hemingway from getting behind the camera). The project also has a score by jazz musician and Spike Lee regular Terrence Blanchard.
The big question now is if the film will go for an Oscar qualifying run (if Kevin Smith‘s “Red State” can do it, anybody can) or if it will crop up somewhere in the fall festival mix (we doubt it). “Red Tails” will face some stiff competition on its opening weekend, squaring off against Steven Soderbergh‘s “Haywire” and the franchise installment “Underworld: Awakening.” But, we’re definitely intrigued to see what Lucas and Hemingway have come up with. The former has been caught inside his own world of “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” for so long now, that we’re curious to see what he’ll bring to the table for a WWII picture. If anything, you can probably expect a trailer for 3D-ized “Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace” which arrives in theaters the following month, to play in front of this thing. [via Movieline]
