The Controversial Jamie Foxx Movie That Was Never Released
· Vice
In October 2016, Jamie Foxx began shooting All-Star Weekend, a “wild” comedy film that was supposed to be his directorial debut. In it, Foxx and Jeremy Piven play a pair of basketball fanatics who win tickets to the NBA All-Star Game. Along the way, they meet a mysterious woman with a hidden agenda, and the two eventually find themselves in a life-or-death situation involving their basketball heroes. The movie also featured appearances by Eva Longoria, Snoop Dogg, Floyd Mayweather Jr., and Robert Downey Jr.
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All-Star Weekend was slated for release in 2018, but it never ended up getting finished. Plans to put it out in 2019 and 2021 similarly fell through, and the film was eventually shelved. According to Foxx, the movie never saw the light of day due to some of its more controversial elements. “Man, it’s been tough, with the lay of the land when it comes to comedy, man. We’re trying to break open those sensitive corners where people go back to laughing again,” the comedian told CinemaBlend in 2022.
Foxx revealed to Joe Rogan years earlier that he also played a white, racist cop in the film, and Downey Jr. played a Mexican character. “I called Robert, I said, ‘Listen, I need you to play a Mexican.’ He says, ‘Dude, uh, here’s the deal. Sure. F–k it. Sure. Why not? F–k it. Sure. Of course. Yeah, Mexican. Whatever,’” he explained. At a press conference last year, Foxx said that Downey Jr. initially got cold feet after agreeing to do it. “At two o’clock in the morning, he texted me, and he’s like, ‘Yo, bro, I’m nervous about playing a Hispanic guy.’ And I’m like, ‘You played a Black guy in Tropic Thunder!’”
All-Star Weekend remains unreleased, and very little footage from it has been made available. In 2024, Foxx leaked the movie’s trailer on his YouTube channel, captioning it, “The movie we couldn’t [release] a while back…but I got a sneaky feeling we might have to drop this b—h.. the vibe is right.” None of the scenes featuring Downey Jr. or Foxx as the white cop are included, however. Check it out for yourself below.
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