PASTE MAGAZINE: MJW on Living the Black Dynamite Life and The Outlaw Johnny Black

Michael Jai White is the rarest kind of artist—the kind who makes profoundly silly movies for the most discerning of palates. The star of 2009 cult classic blaxploitation satire Black Dynamite and director of its upcoming follow-up The Outlaw Johnny Black, White cuts an imposing figure, even as he celebrated his 50th birthday back in November. He’s had a lengthy career full of groundbreaking firsts—it’s far too easy to forget that this guy was the first black actor to ever portray a major comic book superhero in a major motion picture when he took the lead role in 1997’s Spawn. As an actor, he’s been overlooked by the Hollywood mainstream, while simultaneously building a massive fandom of genre movie fans with projects like Blood and Bone, Undisputed II or Mortal Kombat: Legacy.

And when we say “massive,” that’s no hyperbole. Michael Jai White’s online following is huge, spread across a network of highly engaged social media profiles. The guy has almost 5 million Facebook followers, comparable to most of the cast members of The Avengers. He has the same number of followers as the official page for Seinfeld, and a million more than Chris Pratt.

Think about that for a second. Michael Jai White, of Black Dynamite, has 25 percent more Facebook fans than the star of Guardians of the Galaxy, Jurassic World and The Lego Movie. That’s how popular the actor is among consumers of independent action films and bone-crunching martial arts movies—he’s nothing less than royalty in that world.

And now, the time has come for White to reach out directly to that fanbase in the making of The Outlaw Johnny Black. The director’s first crowdfunded feature just kicked off its IndieGoGo campaign, seeking an eye-popping $2 million for the film’s production. Described as a spiritual (if not direct) follow-up to Black Dynamite, it takes similar aim at black ’70s westerns such as Buck and The Preacher, with more than a little Sergio Leone thrown in for good measure. It’s the payoff to a long-awaited concept that White conceived more than a decade ago: A trilogy of interconnected ’70s film parodies, each of which would feature the same cast but tackle a different genre.

“This one will be paying loving homage to the blaxploitation-era westerns…