What the Hell Happened to Wesley Snipes?

[TMC]

http://lebeauleblog.com/2012/08/04/what-the-hell-happened-to-wesley-snipes/

Posted by lebeau

At the top of his career, Wesley Snipes was an A-list action star who
could also cross-over into comedy and drama as he saw fit. Few actors
can claim the kind of cross-genre success Snipes enjoyed. But all
that ended amid very public legal entanglements that ultimately landed
Snipes in jail with a three year sentence for failing to file tax
returns.

If you take nothing else away from this article, remember this: No
matter what anyone else tells you, you still need to file your taxes.

Snipes made his screen debut opposite future co-star Woody Harrelson
in the 1986 Goldie Hawn football comedy, Wildcats. Amazingly,
Wildcats was also Harrelson’s big screen debut. Years later, the two
would reunite as box office stars for two more films. But here, they
were both unkowns.

Wildcats is your typical Goldie Hawn comedy following the formula that
was successful with Private Benjamin to lesser results. Instead of
the army, Wildacts finds plucky Hawn as the unlikely coach of an inner
city high school football team.

No one expects a movie like Wildcats to be good. And it wasn’t. It
was the kind of bland, harmless comedy Hawn was known for in those
days. Her daughter, Kate Hudson, has carried on the torch with
similarly formulaic romantic comedies in this decade.

Later that year, Snipes followed up Wildcats with another sports
movie. In Streets of Gold, Snipes played a boxer coached by Klaus
Maria Brandauer. At the time of the movie’s release, Brandauer was
the star. But later video releases would emphasize Snipes’ supporting
role.

Meanwhile (yes, we are still in 1986!) Snipes was also paying his dues
on TV. Most notably, he played a pimp on the 80′s TV sensation, Miami
Vice. Around this time, Snipes was also in consideration for the role
of Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Proving that
sometimes things work out for the best, the role ultimately went to
LeVar Burton.

The following year, he played another gangster opposite Michael
Jackson in the Bad video…

This is easily the most mis-matched gang fight on all time. And yet,
Jackson triumphs with his superior cotch-grabs. Sham-on! Famously,
this video was directed by Martin Scorsese! I guess Robert DeNiro was
busy that day.

It is nothing short of a miracle that Snipes ever again played a tough
guy after having both Michael Jackson’s finger and his junk thrust at
him that many times.

Not surprisingly, Snipes took 1988 off presumably to recover from the
dressing down Michael Jackson gave him. He returned to sports films
with 1989′s baseball comedy, Major League. Snipes played a showy
centerfielder, Willie Mays Hayes. It was a small role, but it allowed
Snipes to make the most of his screen time.

The movie was a hit and allowed Snipes to move on to bigger and better
things. A sequel was released in 1994. But Snipes declined to return
to the role that helped make him a star. He was replaced by Omar
Epps.

Snipes appeared in two films in 1990. He had a small role in the
Christopher Walken crime thriller, King of New York. But more
importantly, he finally got to work with director Spike Lee after
having turned down a small role in Do the Right Thing to make Major
League.

Mo Better Blues is a period drama about a jazz musician played by
Denzel Washington. Snipes played another grand-stander as
Washington’s band-mate and sometime rival, Shadow Henderson.

Mo Better came at a time when Spike Lee was on a roll commercially if
not creatively. While not a critical darling like Do the Right Thing,
Mo Better was a hit both with critics and audiences.

1991 was a big year for Snipes. He got his first starring role as
drug lord, Nino Brown in Mario Van Peebles’ New Jack City. New Jack
City was a surprise hit that spawned a decade’s worth of copy cats.
It is one of those films that gets forgotten in the wave of imitators
it inspired. But Nino Brown was a star-making role for Snipes.

Later that year, Snipes reteamed with Spike Lee for the inter-racial
relationship drama, Jungle Fever.

Like Mo Better Blues, Jungle Fever is a frustrating film. It feels
like a great film that lost its focus. But like Mo Better, the
reviews were mostly positive and Jungle Fever was another box office
hit for Lee and Snipes.

1992 was another big year for Snipes. He started it off with another
sports comedy, Ron Shelton’s White Men Can’t Jump.

White Men reteamed Snipes with Woody Harrelson after they both made
they big screen debut in Wildcats. By this point, they were both
rising stars on their own. And White Men would put them both over the
top.

Later that year, Snipes kicked off the action movie phase of his
career with Passenger 57.

I remember Snipes saying that he wanted to be seen as “the black
Arnold Schwarzenegger”. Passenger 57, which was a standard Die Hard
rip-off, was the first step in making that happen. Negative reviews
didn’t stop the film from being a hit.

Snipes spent 1993 trying to expand on his action movie success. His
first film, Boiling Point, bombed unceremoniously. But he followed it
up with Rising Sun opposite Sean Connery who was at the time
experiencing a late career resurgence. Despite mixed reviews, the
Japan-based action movie was an international smash hit.

Later that year, Snipes took a bad guy turn opposite Sylvester
Stallone in the sci-fi action-comedy Demolition Man.

Demolition Man is one strange film. The original script was written
by Daniel Waters best known for writing the black comedy, Heathers.
You can tell that the movie was originally intended as a satire of the
kind of mindless action movies Stallone was known for. But with the
casting of Stallone, Demolition Man got squeezed into the typical 90′s
action movie formula.

The end result is a mixed bag of a movie. There are still some nice
satiric touches that elevate it above the usual blood and guts action
movies from the times. The movie also co-stars a young, charismatic
Sandra Bullock who frequently steals the show from the wooden star.

For his part, Snipes seems to be having the time of his life as a
ruthless killer in a world of pacifists. To say he goes over-the-top
would be a gross under-statement.

Reviews were mixed for Demolition Man, but it was a hit at the box
office.

1994 was an off year for Snipes. His crime drama, Sugar Hill was
another critical and commercial dud. Making matters worse, his action
movie follow-up, Drop Zone didn’t hit either.

In 1995, Snipes returned to comedy as a drag queen in To Wong Foo,
Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar. Yes, that is the title! The
film is basically an unofficial remake of the Australian film, The
Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert which also had an
extremely long title.

Suddenly, getting roughed up by Michael Jackson was not the biggest
dent in Snipes’ tough guy image.

To Wong Foo got mixed reviews and did middling box office. But at
least it wasn’t another bomb like Drop Zone.

Later that year, Snipes attempted to rebound by reteaming with
Harrleson for the action/comedy, Money Train.

Money Train is perhaps best known for a steamy sex scene between
Snipes and an unkown Jennifer Lopez. I have read interviews with
Lopez in which she talks about feeling uncomfortable filming this
scene. In some interviews I have read, Lopez makes it sound like she
felt pressured by Snipes. Reportedly, he told her that if the scene
wasn’t hot enough, Lopez’s part would end up on the cutting room
floor.

In later interviews, Lopez laughs this off. She seems to acknowledge
that Snipes was probably right.

In spite of the steamy Lopez-Snipes action, Money Train wasn’t a hit.
The reviews were largely negative. But at least the film made a
profit, albeit a small one.

In 1996, Snipes starred opposite Robert DeNiro in the Tony Scott
thriller, The Fan.

The Fan had to look good on paper. Snipes was once again playing an
athlete and DeNiro was squarely in Cape Fear territory as a stalker.
It was a simple premise with two big name stars and a stylish director
with a proven box office track record.

Oh, it was also really bad. How bad was it? If I had to pick a point
in time when DeNiro’s career came off the rails, it would be Rocky and
Bullwinkle. But it started to teeter on the tracks with The Fan.

Not surprisingly, The Fan was a bomb.

I’m just going to skip over 1997, Murder at 1600 and One Night Stand.
Any objections? Didn’t think so. Moving on.

In 1998, Snipes bounced back with two action movies. First, he stood
in for Harrison Ford in The Fugitive sequel, US Marshalls.

The sequel (as the name implies) focused more on Tommy Lee Jones’
character’s law enforment team than the previous film. But they
needed someone to chase and that someone was Snipes.

US Marshalls was not nearly as well-received as The Fugitive. But it
was a much needed box-office hit for Snipes after a string of
disappointments.

Later that year, Snipes starred in the movie that would redefine his
career, Blade.

It’s worth noting that there was no indication that Blade would be a
hit. It was based on a c-list Marvel comic book character at a time
when movies based on comic book characters were not doing well. But
the bloody, stylish vampire movie proved to be the biggest hit of
Snipes’ career to date. And it can be indirectly credited with
starting the current comic book movie boom.

Snipes followed up Blade with the kind of movies that would go on to
redefine his career once more. Right after hitting it big with Blade,
Snipes started appearing in junk like the Canadian-American action
film, The Art of War.

Later, when Snipes’ legal problems would prevent him from filming
movies in the United States, Snipes would film a direct-to-video Art
of War sequel.

Fortunately for Snipes, he still had the Blade franchise to fall back
on. Luckier still, Blade 2 was directed by none other than Guillermo
del Toro. The result is an uneven movie which is arguably more
interesting than the original. Despite mixed reviews, Blade 2 became
the most successful film in the series.

You’ll pardon me if I skip over the 2002 boxing dud, Undisputed as
well as the 2004 direct-to-video release Unstoppable. The letter U
seemed to be unlucky for Snipes.

Once again, Snipes relied on the Blade franchise to revive his
flagging career. But this time, the result was drastically
different. 2004′s Blade Trinity was the directorial debut for David
Goyer, the writer of all of the Blade films.

Goyer originally intended Blade 3 to be a post apocalyptic Planet of
the Vampires kind of movie. But when that was deemed “too dark” and
probably too expensive, Goyer decided to make Blade vs. Dracula
instead. And for good measure, he cast Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel
in key roles.

Just how key those roles were was the issue of a law suit Snipes filed
against New Line Cinema and Goyer. Snipes claimed he was squeezed out
of the film creatively and that his role was marginalized. According
to Snipes, this hurt the box office performance of Blade 3.

As a rule, I don’t like agreeing with Snipes. I don’t know that a
lawsuit was the way to go, but I can’t help but see his point. Goyer
clearly intended to make a spin-off franchise around Reynolds’ and
Biels’ characters. To the point where they feel like the stars of the
film. Blade does seem pushed to the margins.

But at the end of the day, Blade Trinity tanked because it was a
terrible movie. As writer and director, I lay the blame on Goyer even
if Snipes was apparently a real asshole on the set. In one version of
the films’ ending, Goyer had to digitally close Snipes’ eyes because
Snipes refused to do it himself.

Comedian/actor Patton Oswald had a small part in Blade Trinity and
described the experience as follows:

It was a very troubled production. Wesley was just fucking crazy in a
hilarious way. He wouldn’t come out of his trailer, and he would smoke
weed all day… Then I remember one day on the set—they let everyone
pick their own clothes—there was one black actor who was also kind of
a club kid. And he wore this shirt with the word “Garbage” on it in
big stylish letters. It was his shirt. And Wesley came down to the
set, which he only did for close-ups. Everything else was done by his
stand-in. I only did one scene with him. But he comes on and goes,
“There’s only one other black guy in the movie, and you make him wear
a shirt that says ‘Garbage?’ You racist motherfucker!”

And he tried to strangle the director, David Goyer. So later that
night, Ron Perlman was in the city… So we went out that night to some
strip club, and we were all drinking. And there were a bunch of bikers
there, so David says to them, “I’ll pay for all your drinks if you
show up to set tomorrow and pretend to be my security.” Wesley freaked
out and went back to his trailer. [Laughs.] And the next day, Wesley
sat down with David and was like, “I think you need to quit. You’re
detrimental to this movie.” And David was like, “Why don’t you quit?
We’ve got all your close-ups, and we could shoot the rest with your
stand-in.” And that freaked Wesley out so much that, for the rest of
the production, he would only communicate with the director through
Post-it notes. And he would sign each Post-it note “From Blade.”

A lot of the lines that Ryan Reynolds has were just a result of Wesley
not being there. We would all just think of things for him to say and
then cut to Wesley’s face not doing anything because that’s all we
could get from him. It was kind of funny. We were like, “What are the
worst jokes and puns that we can say to this guy?” And then it would
just be his face going, “Mmm.”

Blade 3 killed the franchise along with hopes of the Nightstalkers
spin-off Goyer had planned. Snipes’ lawsuit was settled out of court.

But Snipes’ legal turmoil was just getting started.

In 2005, Snipes was detained at OR Tambo International Airport for
attempting to leave South Africa using a fraudulent South African
passport. And in 2006, Snipes’ entanglements with the IRS started up.

Snipes’ battle with the IRS is well-documented elsewhere, so I won’t
go into detail here. For a time, Snipes was a tax exile filming
direct-to-video schlock overseas. Eventually, Snipes was sentenced to
three years in prison for failure to file his taxes. Snipes began his
sentence in 2010 and is scheduled for release July 19, 2013.

It is reported that Snipes was in talks to reteam with Sylvester
Stallon in The Expendables but was unable to leave the country to film
it. Presumably if The Expendables franchise is still going after
Snipes is released, it may serve as his comeback vehicle as it has so
many of his fellow fallen action stars.

[an xtr]

a1

https://groups.google.com/group/sex-4-all-people/attach/0c3c6b026cf6f35e/caught+jucking%2B.htm?part=4&view=1