The Film School Rejects – THE SPIRIT OF ‘BLACK DYNAMITE’ LIVES ON IN ‘THE OUTLAW JOHNNY BLACK’
The brilliance of Black Dynamite is in how it perfectly falls in line with the blaxploitation genre, manages to mock its absurdity, and still comes out feeling fresh and inventive. A swelling love for the source material is found within every frame. We can expect more of the same from The Outlaw Johnny Black.
However, the idea this time around is to pull off a completely fan-funded production free from studio interference/interest. White’s Jaigantic Studios has taken to Indiegogo to get the project off the ground, and they’ve set the goal at $1 million. The incentives range from autographed t-shirts to a walk-on brawl with Johnny Black himself. You read that right, for $5,000 you can go mano a mano against the outlaw.
With a trailer consisting of just a few quickly strung together scenes, the film looks to be in sync with Black Dynamite’s unique balance of send-up and legit successor. Key to that is White pulling the same meta-performance, portraying football icon turned terrible actor Ferrante Jones playing Johnny Black. Half the fun of the first film was found in that low-budget naval gazing. The boom mics dropping into frame, the actors failing to hit their marks. There’s a picture-in-picture play at work here, and imagining the actors trapped in the b-movie is as equally charming as the b-movie itself.
By: BRAD GULLICKSON – Film School Rejects
