While we await his takes on Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse and Marvel’s retro puncher Luke Cage, John Singleton is keeping busy behind the scenes on other projects.
Singleton is producing a drama called Illegal Tender, which I could swear I accidentally picked up and looked at when I accidentally ventured behind that curtain at the video store. The movie comes from Franc Reyes, the guy who wrote and directed Empire (which is actually not a bad little crime-as-business flick), and tells the story of a young Latino man who takes his madre on the run while evading the thugs who killed his pops.
The $3 million movie will star reggaeton artist Tego Calderon, Rick Gonzalez (that kid with the really annoying hair from movies like Biker Boyz and Old School), Wanda De Jesus and Zoe Saldana, and the soundtrack will be driven by reggaeton music. This is how out of touch I am: I had to look up reggaeton on Wikipedia. I did not, however, have to look up crazy hot Dominican shot Zoe Saldana, who played the sassy swashbuckling babe in Pirates of the Caribbean, but I did anyway.
Although Singleton last directed Four Brothers, a 70s-flavored revenge flick I enjoyed immensely, remember that he also produced Hustle and Flow in his downtime, so perhaps there’ll be some more unexpected entries in the music category come Oscar season.