‘All-Star Weekend’: the Jamie Foxx-directed movie you will never see
There are plenty of names in Hollywood who have more than one talent, but there aren’t many to have mastered quite as many different disciplines over the course of their careers as Jamie Foxx.
Beyond being an Academy Award-winning actor who deservedly scooped a ‘Best Actor’ trophy for his immersive performance as Ray Charles in the biopic Ray, the star has repeatedly showcased his talents in drama, comedy, action, thriller, animation and fantasy. There’s barely any genre he isn’t very familiar with.
That’s only one of the strings on his bow, though, with Foxx one of the most versatile A-listers the industry has to offer. In Living Colour gave him his breakthrough and displayed his talents for sketch comedy before The Jamie Foxx Show gave him his very own sitcom that ran for 100 episodes, without even mentioning the popularity of his stand-up shows that toured the United States to packed houses.
He’s also released five studio albums, been nominated for ten Grammys and won one, taken home an American Music Award for ‘Favourite Soul/R&B Male Artist’, and snagged three Soul Train Music Awards. He’s an accomplished songwriter, a classically-trained pianist, and has produced several of his own albums and movies, so there aren’t many things he can’t do.
That being said, a lingering mystery is whether or not Foxx has any abilities as a feature film director. He’s done it a long time ago, in fact, but nobody knows whether All-Star Weekend is any good because it’s been sitting on the shelf gathering dust since principal photography wrapped in early 2017. After seven years of complete and total nothingness, it’s fair to say the world will never get to wrap its eyes around the star-studded sports comedy.
Co-written, produced, and directed by Foxx – who plays the lead role of Malik – All-Star Weekend follows a pair of tow-truck drivers and basketball fanatics who win tickets to the NBA’s All-Star game. On the way there, the duo cross paths with Eva Longoria’s enigmatic Asia, which snowballs into a life-or-death situation that turns their dreams of attending the most notable match on the calendar into the least of their concerns.
Alongside Foxx and Longoria, All-Star Weekend lived up to its title through casting alone, with roles for Jeremy Piven, Gerard Butler, Ken Jeong, Benicio del Toro, Snoop Dogg, Floyd Mayweather Jr, and even a cameo appearance from Robert Downey Jr as a Mexican character. That may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Originally intended to hit cinemas in February 2018, the movie ended up running behind schedule and delayed for a year. However, it was subsequently pushed back yet again to 2021 before Foxx admitted the following year that it probably isn’t going to be released at all, due in part to the potential insensitivity of casting Downey Jr as a Mexican, not that such potentially incendiary material stopped him getting an Oscar nomination for his role as Kirk Lazarus in Tropic Thunder.
Foxx knew it, too, explaining that was why he approached him in the first place, because, in his own words, he “played the Black dude, and you killed that shit”. Unfortunately, changing attitudes to comedy stymied not only Downey Jr’s contributions but almost certainly the chances of All-Star Weekend being made available for public consumption.
“It’s been tough with the lay of the land when it comes to comedy,” Foxx said to CinemaBlend. “We’re trying to break open the sensitive corners where people go back to laughing again.” That was in August 2022, but as of yet, there are absolutely no signs of his directorial debut escaping from cinematic purgatory and securing a release either in cinemas or on streaming.
If things do change and All-Star Weekend is deemed worthy of being plucked from the darkest recesses of nothingness, then don’t bet against it ending up on Netflix. After all, since 2020 alone, Foxx has appeared in the superhero story Project Power, vampiric action comedy Day Shift, sci-fi caper They Cloned Tyrone, and short-lived sitcom Dad Stop Embarrassing Me! for the streamer, with the Cameron Diaz comeback vehicle Back in Action on the cards.
