By: Russ Burlingame on February 2, 2013
Red Tails, George Lucas’s underperforming passion project about Tuskege Airmen, beat out Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained and Flight to take home Best Picture last night at the NAACP Image Awards.
Red Tails, which received only a 39% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, was directed by Anthony Hemingway and co-written by Aaron McGruder, creator of The Boondocks.
Shortly after the release of the film, which Lucas had been developing on and off for more than twenty years, the iconic filmmaker said that he would likely retire, or at least step away from mainstream films and begin making smaller movies just for himself.
“I’m retiring,” Lucas told the New York Times. “I’m moving away from the business, from the company, from all this kind of stuff.”
Obviously, by the end of the year he had a deal in place to sell Lucasfilm to Disney and launch a new generation of Star Wars films.
The Image Awards last night gave a Best Actor trophy to Denzel Washington for Flight, Best Actress to Viola Davis for Don’t Back Down, Best Supporting Actress to Kerry Washington for Django Unchained and Best Supporting Actor to Avengers star Samuel L. Jackson, also for Django. Beasts of the Southern Wild won for Best Independent Motion Picture.
