Danny Glover disses Hollywood’s rejection of his historical drama.
Despite spending decades in Hollywood, Danny Glover is feeling the familiar pain of struggling, Black filmmakers who can’t find funding for their own projects. Glover, best known for his roles in the Lethal Weapon series and The Color Purple, has been working to produce a biopic based on the revolutionary Haitian general Toussaint L’Overture. Controversial Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez reportedly offered half of the film’s $36 million budget, but Glover couldn’t come up with the remainder, based on doubts from independent financiers. “Producers said, ‘It’s a nice project, a great project… Where are the White heroes?’” Glover told a recent seminar in Paris. “I couldn’t get the money here. I couldn’t get the money in Britain. I went to everybody… The first question you get is, ‘Is it a Black film?’ All of them agree: ‘It’s not going to do good in Europe, it’s not going to do good in Japan.’ Somebody has to prove that to be a lie.” L’Overture led a violent uprising against French rule in Haiti, which gave the nation its freedom from slavery in the 1700s.