BY KEITH LACEY
Not so long ago, Robert (Rob) Adetuyi spent many long days on the phone trying to line up his next Hollywood project.
But some big players in Tinseltown are now phoning him after the unexpected huge success of Stomp The Yard, written by Sudbury-born Adetuyi.
It’s been 15 years since Adetuyi jumped on a plane with not much more than the clothes on his back to accept an invitation from Canadian director Norman Jewison to live at his home while trying to land work in Hollywood.
Jewison had worked with Robert and his brothers Alphonse, Amos and Tom, who do film and television work in Toronto (InnerCity Films).
The Adetuyi brothers attended Sudbury Secondary School in the 1970s and credit arts teacher Jack Smith for allowing them to “run amok with a 16mm camera, and then gave them unlimited access to the school’s post production facility.”
According to the Inner City website Smith “succeeded in igniting the brothers’ abiding obsession with film and television.”
With varying degrees of success, Adetuyi, who just turned 47, has managed to make a living writing, directing and producing television and films in, without doubt, the toughest show business market in the world.
He realizes writing a screenplay for a movie that has drawn such large audiences could be the big break he’s been waiting for.
Stomp the Yard was the No. 1 film in North America when it opened a couple of weeks ago, bringing in more than $25 million on its opening weekend. It is currently showing at SilverCity Cinemas.
“I’m obviously extremely thrilled the movie’s done big box office numbers, and I’m just as thrilled the audience response has been, for the most part, so positive,” said Adetuyi, speaking to Northern Life from his Los Angeles home.
“Exit polls from the movie have been fantastic...through the roof and the audiences really seem to love the movie.”
While critics haven’t given the movie the same kind of praise, Adetuyi said he doesn’t care because he’d rather have audiences love a movie over critics.
The idea for the movie was formed by producer Will Packer, who attended university in the southern United States and became fascinated with the phenomenon of “stepping” or “stomping.” Mostly black fraternities hold competitions featuring intricate dance moves that are a combination of military drills and hip hop, said Adetuyi.
“Will developed the script with another writer, but the studio wasn’t very happy with it and they suggested Will give me a try,” he said. “I did a lot of research in a hurry and came up with something the studio liked.
“Sony Screen Gems hired me, and about four months later I had a script, and shooting on the film started last summer.”
There are a lot of cliches in the film, but that could be said of so many Hollywood films.
The movie tells the story of a young underdog named DJ (Columbus Short) who moves to Los Angeles from Atlanta after his younger brother is murdered.
He gets in trouble with the law and ends up going to jail, but he’s released and decides to straighten his life out by attending Truth University. He finds his black sorority brothers are into stepping competitions in a big way.
Like many mainstream flicks, DJ develops a crush on the prettiest black girl on campus, which angers her arrogant boyfriend. He is the leader of the fraternity that has captured the national stepping championships seven years in succession.
It just so happens members of another fraternity, Theta Nu Theta, have noticed what a talented dancer DJ is and they go about actively recruiting him.
This is a dance movie and the dance scenes are easily the best thing about the film.
Adetuyi said he “writes everyday” and is working on simultaneous projects year-round, but working on the screenplay for Stomp the Yard was fun and challenging because he knew the producers wanted something in a hurry.
He had heard about the stepping phenomenon in the southern United States, but admits he didn’t realize just how popular it was for so many young black people.
In the three weeks since Stomp the Yard was first released, Adetuyi said he’s receiving many more phone calls than he’s placing.
“I am getting a lot more phone calls now and that’s great news because this is a tough business and you try to make new contacts everyday,” he said.
Adetuyi has also wrote the script for the new movie Code Name: The Cleaner, featuring Cedric The Entertainer, which was put into limited release in the United States a few weeks ago.
He’s also sold a comedy screenplay to Sony Screen Games about a movie that has yet to be titled but set to go into production in June.
Adetuyi wrote a screenplay several years ago tentatively titled Moon Men. Set in the early 1970s, it is about young boys who meet up with the NASA astronauts who trained here in Sudbury.
Adetuyi said it would be a dream come true to have his script for Moon Men turned into a feature film and promises many of the scenes would be shot in Sudbury if the project happens.
Being a black Canadian moving to Los Angeles 15 years ago brought certain challenges, said Adetuyi.
“There was a lot of racial tension back then as it wasn’t long after the Rodney King trial and riots,” he said. “I can tell you I moved to Malibu not long after arriving in California, and I used to get pulled over by police on a regular basis for no reason whatsoever.
“The good news is things have changed in a much more positive direction over the past few years.”
Adetuyi hopes the success of Stomp the Yard has opened a lot of doors for him and he will be able to expand his talents into not only writing more screenplays, but directing and maybe producing his own films in the near future.
Watching a Canadian like Paul Haggis win the Academy Award for writing the screenplay to Million Dollar Baby is a huge inspiration, said Adetuyi.
“It’s very inspiring to see a talented Canadian like him do so well,” he said. “It makes all us other Canadians know we have a chance to do something really big.”
