Jamie Foxx's NBA 'All-Star Weekend' Movie Got Shelved By Hollywood For 'Brownface' And It's A Shame

Is Hollywood still threatened by the pressures of political correctness? One project kept away from the public eye for its 'insensitivity' certainly makes that case, even in 2024. And what better time than NBA All-Star Weekend to highlight one of the strangest examples of Hollywood's decision to keep a finished, million-dollar project from releasing in theaters?

Jamie Foxx's Directorial Debut ‘Too Insensitive’ For Hollywood

All-Star Weekend is an unreleased project, written and directed by Jamie Foxx in 2016. Yes, singer / songwriter Jamie Foxx, who also earned an Oscar for Best Actor for playing Ray Charles.

LONDON - Jamie Foxx attends the "Creed III" European Premiere at Cineworld Leicester Square on February 15, 2023. (Photo by Joe Maher/Getty Images)

Foxx is a respected name in the entertainment industry. So why would a studio give him millions to spend on a comedy featuring a bevy of stars — Foxx, Eva Longoria, Jeremy Piven, Gerard Butler, Robert Downey, Jr., and more — and regarding a subject like the NBA, aided by a built-in audience? 

Robert Downey Jr.'s ‘Brownfacing’ in ‘All-Star Weekend’ Buries Project

Taking a massive risk creatively, Foxx wrote, directed, produced and acted in the movie — described as a road trip comedy. Foxx and Piven played characters taking a road trip to Los Angeles to watch LeBron James play in the NBA's annual All-Star festivities. Along the road trip of a lifetime, Foxx and Piven run into strange characters along the way, including RDJ's Mexican man, learning some lessons before reaching their destination.

Even if the premise didn't sound like a blockbuster hit, we've seen Tinseltown put out greater heaps of basketball-related trash (White Men Can't Jump and House Party remakes, anyone?), so why not release Foxx's film?

In 2022, Foxx commented that the film would never be released. Foxx acknowledged that Hollywood found the project too offensive but that its goal was to ‘break open the sensitive corners.’ 

"It’s been tough with the lay of the land when it comes to comedy," Foxx said in an Interview with CinemaBlend. "We’re trying to break open the sensitive corners where people go back to laughing again. We hope to keep them laughing and run them right into ‘All-Star Weekend’ because we were definitely going for it."

The silent killer of this project is none other than Robert Downey, Jr., who plays a Mexican man in the movie. 

This ‘brownfacing’ proved too obscene for Hollywood, thus keeping this million-dollar movie in the basement to die a slow death while politically correct trash still gets the green light.

Keeping in mind, Hollywood isn't necessarily afraid to condemn a sect of its audiences, as long as they're not of a certain minority class.

IMDB / Robert Downey, Jr. and Jeremy Piven on ‘All-Star Weekend’ set.

Movie audiences think back to RDJ's ‘blackface’ role in Tropic Thunder (2008). According to Jamie Foxx, he used RDJ's Oscar-nominated role in Tropic to build this character. 

But a Caucasian man playing a Mexican man proved too controversial for producers and has kept the project shelved as a result.

Foxx added in his sit-down with CinemaBlend, "I called Robert, I said, ‘I need you to play a Mexican,'. I said, ‘Sh*t, you played the Black dude [in ‘Tropic Thunder’] and you killed that sh*t.’ We got to be able to do characters."

The cast, including Foxx, have spoken out and called the unreleased project an uproarious feature with great potential. No band of major talent could come together for a project like this if it lacked potential.

Hollywood Hides From Answering For Shelved ‘All-Star’ Project

Despite Tropic Thunder proving that ‘insensitive’ material can be permissible on the big screen, as long as it makes the audience laugh, Foxx relayed that the landscape for comedy has changed, for the worse.

The movie was produced by Jamie Foxx, Avram "Butch" Kaplan, Chuck Pacheco and Deon Taylor. OutKick reached out to two producers of the defunct All-Star Weekend project. One producer responded "No comment" and promptly blocked this OutKick writer.

Surely these Hollywood executives can't be cowering over a faux-Mexican RDJ character, right? 

After all … it's only a movie.

Hollywood Prides Itself In P.C. Content, Even If It Hemorrhages Money

Anyone who's followed the machinations of Hollywood understands projects come and go, with no guarantee that they'll show in theaters regardless of the project's status. 

With the recent output of trash in cinema, perhaps All-Star Weekend was so unwatchable, execs couldn't risk the chance of losing money. Then again, looking at Disney's streak of animated box-office bombs or $200-million-plus comic movies that go on to fail, Hollywood will gladly swallow its share of financial disasters as long as they're inoffensive or promoting their message. 

Hollywood's unreliable decision-making has led to movies like How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022), Fools Paradise (2023) and The Marvels (2023) receiving their releases. The latter two showcase Hollywood's low standard for filmmaking and writing, while Pipeline displays Hollywood's insouciance with making a big, dumb movie for environmentalists, at the risk of making everyone else outside that group look like the bad guy. 

For the past decade, Hollywood has not been motivated by the quality of films; rather, they dictate which projects are acceptable for audiences based on their standard of political correctness. 

Foxx's movie truly can't be more offensive than the aforementioned movie releases, which admittedly shouldn't have seen the light of day. 

But the Hollywood machine prides itself as an arbiter of what's morally or culturally appropriate, rather than letting audiences think or laugh for themselves.

Follow along on X:@AlejandroAveela