He was selected as the vice leader on the 200th day of his debut. This idol who has the nickname Baecop joined as a trainee in 2015 after he passed an audition in Toronto. Meet Bae Joon-young aka Jacob Bae who was born in Toronto, Canada, on May 30, 1997. Having a leader for a K-pop group might be common in the K-pop industry, but having a vice leader? Now, that’s a new thing that K-pop boy group The Boyz brought onto the table. So there’s nothing to apologize for, nothing to regret, other than Singleton’s early death, of stroke, in The Vice Leader of The Boyz, Jacob! Others followed, Lee Daniels, Steve McQueen, Spike Lee, Barry Jenkins, Jordan Peele. Singleton later told me his only wish was to lose the distinction of being the only black directing nominee. Of course, the Academy loved Singleton enough to make him the first black nominee for its directing Oscar, in 1992.

Jeff Stockwell, later a development executive for Maurice Sendak, and then a screenwriter, enjoyed underground celebrity status on the lot just for having spotted Boyz-or so the legend went-when he worked deep in the bowels of Columbia’s story department.Īs for my action project, the studio took a flyer on it-after paying $5,000 for a brief exclusive reading period covering 52 pages from a then unproduced writer, a fairly bizarre deal-because Singleton was interested. in his own first production, the ill-fated boxing film Gladiator, upon leaving his executive post. He moved on to Rosewood, about a lynch mob, for Warner, and mostly stuck with black culture.īut the respect he commanded at Columbia was no less than that afforded the more seasoned filmmaker-producers-Penny Marshall, Harold Ramis, Danny DeVito, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Robert Duvall, John Woo, Adam Sandler, Wolfgang Petersen, Jim Brooks-who then populated the Sony lot.įrank Price, the politically center-right studio chief who gave Boyz its greenlight, was certainly proud of the picture-so much so that he cast its young star Cuba Gooding Jr.

Mostly, I remember a moment of personal uncertainty, as he wrestled with choices between potentially hot action projects or a deeper dive into black culture. By the age of 27, he had made three studio features (adding Poetic Justice and Higher Learning), all for Columbia–a remarkable feat.Ĭertainly, Singleton had his frustrations, then and later. He was that young while making Boyz N The Hood. Sometimes, we talked-enough that I could understand his quiet pride at having found his place in the studio system at the age of 22. On one project, a never-produced action film, we were partners. While at Columbia, trying to produce movies in the 1990s, I had an office two doors down from Singleton’s. I knew John only a little, certainly much less well than did his executive-mentor and later collaborator Stephanie Allain, or the many young people who worked at his New Deal production company. But Singleton and his 1991 debut film deserve to be remembered for what they were: A proud and unapologetic presence in a studio culture that was happy to have them. Academy Names Winners of 2022 Nicholl Fellowships In Screenwriting

The boyz debut