Renaissance man (rapper, producer, actor, etc) Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson is reportedly teaming up with director Antoine Fuqua to start a new production company.
Another partnership for Mr Cent who already owns and operates his Cheetah Vision Films production house, with producer Randall Emmett – a the company that you may recall, in collaboration with Lionsgate, sealed $200 million in financing to produce 10 films, all of which we’ve covered on this site (those that have been announced anyway).
“He and I are developing a company together,” Jackson said last week, speaking at the Aruba International Film Festival, where his Mario Van Peebles-directed sports drama, Things Fall Apart was screening.
Screen Daily says the films produced under this new partnership between Fiddy and Fuqua (they should call their new production “Fiddy & Fuqua” :))will primarily by action dramas – a territory Fuqua is intimately familiar with.
No further details are available on this deal yet, so stay tuned…
But Fiddy did reveal a few other items of note: that he invested $2 million of his own money into financing Things Fall Apart, which I didn’t know; and, unsurprisingly, the film will be released straight to DVD in the US; also, he said he wants to work with Oliver Stone and McG, and has met with both recently (not sure what that last part means – whether he just met them recently, or whether he’s met with them about working together on projects); and lastly, he still hopes to eventually work on the Abel Ferrara Jekyll/Hyde project which stalled last year (recall Forest Whitaker was supposed to co-star along with Fiddy but dropped out).
As I’ve said before, I may not care at all for any of the films the man has made thus far, but I can’t knock his hustle. He’s doing what many of us have said we wished more black folks in Hollywood would do – taking the initiative, creating, packaging and producing his own films, and getting them into the market place. One can only hope that in time, the quality of the films he produces will match his business strengths.