George Lucas Says Hollywood Wouldn’t Fund “Red Tails” Due to Black Cast

In an appearance on The Daily Show, director George Lucas stated he had trouble getting funding for “Red Tails” due to its black cast.

“This has been held up for release since 1942 since it was shot, I’ve been trying to get released ever since,” Lucas quipped to Jon Stewart. “It’s because it’s an all-black movie. There’s no major white roles in it at all…I showed it to all of them and they said no. We don’t know how to market a movie like this.”

Red Tails, which stars Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrance Howard, is about a crew of African American pilots in the Tuskegee training program, having faced segregation while kept mostly on the ground during World War II, are called into duty under the guidance of Col. A.J. Bullard.

George Lucas told USA today last week, that he worried if Red Tails was a failure, it would be a hurting on and have negative repercussions on Black filmmakers.

“I realize that by accident I’ve now put the black film community at risk [with Red Tails, whose $58 million budget far exceeds typical all-black productions],” he said. “I’m saying, if this doesn’t work, there’s a good chance you’ll stay where you are for quite a while. It’ll be harder for you guys to break out of that [lower-budget] mold. But if I can break through with this movie, then hopefully there will be someone else out there saying let’s make a prequel and sequel, and soon you have more Tyler Perrys out there.”