‘SuperFly’: Director X on the Challenges of Releasing a Black Studio Film Post-‘Black Panther’

When Sony Pictures asked Director X to remake 1972 blaxploitation classic “Super Fly,” he had never seen the original.

He had also never helmed a studio feature — just a 2015 indie, a Lifetime movie (“Center Stage: On Pointe”), and some of the most memorable music videos of the past 20 years, from Sisqó’s “Thong Song” to Drake’s “Hotline Bling,” viewed more than 1.4 billion times on YouTube.However, while Director X created visuals for Jay-z, Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, Usher, Nicki Minaj, Justin Bieber, and Lil Wayne, “Lethal Weapon” and “Matrix” franchises producer Joel Silver struggled to get his “Super Fly” revamp made.

“Joel had the rights, he had a studio that wanted to make it,” Director X told IndieWire.

“The studio told him, ‘We don’t want to call it ‘Super Fly,’ and we don’t want it to be about anything that the original movie was about.’”From that bizarre pronouncement,

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