'Selma' Actor Reveals His Race-Swapped Rocketeer Film Is "Challenged" With DEI Initiatives Being Scaled Back
David Oyelowo, who played Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma and was to not only star in but produce a race-swapped Rocketeer film, revealed the film was scrapped by Disney after public opinion has waned on DEI initiatives that gained momentum after the death of George Floyd.
The race-swapped Rocketeer film titled The Return of the Rocketeer was announced back in 2021 with Deadline’s Anthony D’Alessandro revealing that Oyelowo and his wife Jessica were to produce the film through their Yoruba Saxon company.
In the announcement, Deadline noted the film was supposed to be a Disney+ exclusive and would focus on a retired Tuskegee airman taking on the Rocketeer mantle. It noted that Oyelowo was likely to star in the film, which had a script written by Ed Ricourt.
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Now, in an interview with Los Angeles Times, Oyelowo revealed the film has been scrapped alongside another project called Onyeka, which had originally been set at Netflix.
He said, “‘Onyeka’ is an absolute bull’s-eye for what we are looking to make, but it is also symptomatic of the challenge we have. We gained traction with that project in the wake of the George Floyd murder and in a moment where there was a cultural correction and people seemed to want to do better. But now we’re in a moment where it’s evident that a lot of that was performative and not bone-deep. Projects like that suddenly become challenged. ‘Onyeka’ being one, ‘Return of the Rocketeer’ at Disney being another.”
Disney previously race-swapped the Rocketeer in its 2019 Disney Junior animated series titled The Rocketeer that saw the great-granddaughter of the original Rocketeer Cliff Second inherit the jetpack.
The show only lasted one season and ended in November 2020.
What do you make of Oyelowo revealing the film has become “challenged” with DEI initiatives being scaled back?
No race and sex swaps are acceptable. Seeing those makes a movie very easy to ignore.
Dang! I really wanted to see this 42nd installment of switch the white character with a black one. Each one being the absolute first ever and step forward to some fantasy or another.