It’s been six years since Jamie Foxx announced his directorial debut, All-Star Weekend, but the film, which reportedly finished post-production in 2019, has yet to see the light of day. All-Star Weekend centers on two basketball fanatics, played by Foxx and Jeremy Piven, whose obsession lands them in dangerous yet hilarious situations after they win tickets to the NBA All-Star Game.
All-Star Weekend features several Hollywood A-listers, with Foxx in the lead as Malik, a tow-truck driver and a LeBron James superfan. Foxx also plays two other roles in the movie, including a racist white cop and the fictional twin of the eccentric color commentator, Stephen A. Smith.
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All-Star Weekend also stars Jeremy Piven as Malik’s best friend and a Steph Curry superfan, along with Eva Longoria, Gerard Butler, Benicio del Toro, Ken Jeong, Jessica Szohr, DJ Khaled, French Montana, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Snoop Dogg, and Robert Downey Jr. in a special appearance as a Mexican man.
“It’s so relevant right now,” Foxx told THR in 2018. “Comedy, right now, needs a movie like All-Star Weekend and something you haven’t seen before.” Unfortunately, All-Star Weekend missed its February 2019 release date for undisclosed reasons and by 2022, was considered “indefinitely shelved.”
Jamie Foxx, whose latest movie, Day Shift, is quickly climbing up Netflix’s top 10 charts, recently addressed All-Star Weekend’s release status. Talking to Cinemablend, Foxx said:
“Man, it’s been tough, with the lay of the land when it comes to comedy, man. We’re trying to break open those sensitive corners where people go back to laughing again. And that’s why I think, even in this film[Day Shift], which is great is (that) the one thing we kept hearing in the screenings was how much people were laughing. So, hopefully we’ll keep them laughing and run them into All-Star Weekend, because we were definitely going for it.”
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All-Star Weekend May Have Been A Victim Of Cancel Culture
Jamie Foxx is hoping to release All-Star Weekend but is finding it “tough” in these times. There’s growing sensitivity nowadays about comedy, and a movie like All-Star Weekend is bound to ruffle some feathers. Several prominent comedians have faced flak lately for their offensive jokes, and Hollywood itself has become more diverse and progressive, with most filmmakers playing it safe when it comes to the comedy genre. Crude and intentionally offensive movies have become a rarity these days, and actors like Seth Rogen have even taken to apologizing for their past movies.
The internet also went ballistic after discovering Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder and accused him of performing in blackface, completely ignoring the whole point of the film. Downey Jr. didn’t do blackface, he played an actor pretending to play an African-American Staff Sergeant. Tropic Thunder satirized the extremes of method acting and the hypocrisy and greed of Hollywood, but somehow even that is considered controversial today. Downey Jr. previously told Joe Rogan that it wouldn’t be possible to make Tropic Thunder in the current climate, and the scenario seems to be playing out with All-Star Weekend.
However, Jamie Foxx is still trying to “break open those sensitive corners,” teasing that All-Star Weekend may not be fully dead just yet. Although the enthusiasm for the film has somewhat diminished now, Foxx and Downey Jr’s comedy chops and the star-studded cast would be enough to entice the viewers again. Hopefully, Foxx will manage to release All-Star Weekend someday. In the meantime, be sure to check out his vampire action-comedy Day Shift, currently streaming on Netflix.
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