Would I be cooler if I were to replace the letter “s” with the letter “z” in an arbitrary manner? Let’s find out.
Three yearz ago, Davis Entertainment (Norbit, Daddy Day Camp) formed a new specialty house called DJ Classicz, which would be headed by a nobody named Dallas Jackson and produce “urban family” filmz. So far, DJ Classicz has produced no filmz, and they have apparently rethought their purpoze.
I think we can agree the “z” project is a resounding failure.
DJ Classicz’ very first film will be an anthology horror film called, of course, Shady Talez (should’ve seen that coming). And they’re making it for Paramount. Variety says the film will include “three stories penned by Jackson and Marlon Chapman that pay hip-hop homage to classic horror films.” Sounds like an, um, “interesting” idea. What doesn’t help, though, is that Chapman has never written a film before, and Jackson’s only screenplay credit is for the Master P-starrer Uncle P, a film IMDB users hate (take that for what you will).
The plan is for Shady Talez to be executive produced by a couple folks from hip-hop record company Violator. Chapman explains why: “We intend to marry each of the stories with a hot director from the music video and/or film world along with Violator’s hip-hop talent roster.” Violator has quite a few recognizable names on their roster (like 50 Cent and Missy Elliot); here’s hoping they at least put LL Cool J in one of the segments.
There’s no word yet on when they’ll get going with this project. I’m guessing you can look forward to flashy and vapid butchering of classic horror sometime next year.