Most of the press for this film so far has come from the fact that Owen Wilson had to drop out of his cameo in it due to his suicide attempt last year and the fact that Robert Downey, Jr. is playing an actor who is so committed to his work that he decides to play a character originally written as a black man…as a black man…by dying his skin and using makeup to make himself appear to be black.
It seems that a lot of the media is trying to make a big deal out of the whole white person playing a black person thing, but I really don’t see the problem. We obviously can’t judge the context of the part without seeing the film and those people who have seen a rough cut of the film (including black people) have had nothing but good things to say about it. I think it’ll turn out to be a non-issue.
At any rate, the film doesn’t open until late summer, but the studio went ahead and released an early teaser trailer for the film. It doesn’t tell much so don’t get too excited.
Tropic Thunder Teaser Trailer
The film also stars Nick Nolte, Jay Baruchel, and Brandon T. Jackson and features cameos by Tom Cruise, Matthew McConaughey, and Tobey Maguire.
Tropic Thunder is set to open on August 15, 2008.
I saw this over the weekend, I have to say, I’d never have guessed in a million years who is playing the black guy in that picture above. The fact that it’s Robert Downey Jr. is pretty amazing…that’s some seriously good makeup.
I know. I really want to hear him act in make-up and see what kind of character he’s doing with it.