Films’ success shows ‘black star power’

So far this year in Hollywood, black equals gold – and, perhaps more importantly, green.

While Morgan Freeman and Jamie Foxx were taking home Oscars last month, box office analysts were taking note of a more important trend: Three of the biggest-earning films so far in 2005 have starred African Americans.

“Hitch,” a romantic comedy featuring Will Smith, has made nearly $150 million. “Are We There Yet?” a family comedy starring former gangster rapper Ice Cube, has topped $79 million. And “Coach Carter,” the inspirational story of an urban basketball coach played by Samuel L. Jackson, has gone over $66 million.

Add to that “Diary of a Mad Black Woman,” which is approaching $50 million despite the lack of big-name stars, and it becomes clear that African Americans in Hollywood aren’t just earning long-overdue respect. They’re also earning a whopping lot of money.

“Granted, the year’s still young, but I think it really shows a wider acceptance across America for black star power, and I only think it’s going to get stronger going forward,” says Gitesh Pandya, the box office analyst for BoxOfficeGuru.com.

“With every passing year, America is becoming more multicultural; people are being exposed to different types of entertainment,” Pandya says. “It’s a very different situation than 10 or 20 years ago, when there was a lot of separation between the races.”

It’s impossible to say yet whether the year’s trend so far is coincidence or an indicator of things to come. January and February are traditionally months in which films featuring African Americans are released, although not usually to this much success.

Ava DuVernay, a Hollywood talent and public relations consultant, say the uptick in African American films may have been sparked by three action movies last summer – “I, Robot,” “Alien vs. Predator” and “Catwoman” – as well as “Collateral,” which, DuVernay says, “had Jamie Foxx as the hero of a Tom Cruise movie.”

Several films featuring African Americans are scheduled in coming weeks, including “Guess Who” with Bernie Mac (opening Friday); “Beauty Shop” with Queen Latifah (March 30); and “XXX: State of the Union” with Ice Cube and Samuel L. Jackson (April 29).

What concerns Gary Anderson, artistic director of Detroit’s Plowshares Theatre, isn’t the number of African American films or how much money they’re making but the types of films being made.

“Most of the films coming out of Hollywood right now for African Americans have nothing to do with the breadth of our culture – like ‘Soul Plane’ or ‘The Cookout,’ ” Anderson says. “It’s not the kind of challenging work I think respected artists get on a regular basis.”

But Anderson can still see the current boom in African American films opening doors that may clear the way for a broader spectrum of black films.

“What I’m hopeful for is that it would be easier for something like ‘Coach Carter’ or ‘Hotel Rwanda’ to get produced,” he says.