George Lucas denies Red Tails reshoots

Yesterday, news broke that George Lucas wasn't happy with World War II drama Red Tails , and was gearing up to reshoot numerous scenes.

The film, which Lucas is executive producing, stars Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Bryan Cranston and wrapped its shoot under the eye of director Anthony Hemingway last November. But Mr Lucas was reportedly unhappy with Hemingway’s work.

Apparently he was to set bolster “massive” reshoots, seizing the directing reigns for himself, with John Ridley’s script having been reworked. FirstShowing said:

“Lucas’ producing partner Rick McCallum is said to be pouring [sic] over dailies right now, trying to salvage whatever footage they can from Hemingway’s work in order to figure out exactly how much will need to be re-shot.”

However, Lucasfilm have been quick to stamp out the rumours, assuring the world that:

"George Lucas and Rick McCallum are very pleased with the work Anthony Hemingway did directing the film and additional shooting that is scheduled to take place was built into production before it began, as it is on all our films."

Inspired by the 332nd Fighter Group, a WWII team who were known as the Red Tails, the film is a fictional account of their activities during the war.

This would have been the first time Lucas had directed a film (even if it was just reshoots) outside of the Star Wars universe since 1973’s American Graffiti ...

Have a bad feeling about this? Drop us a line or two...

Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.