What’s so terrible about this? He’s a criminal making a movie about bank robbers, so its not like he’s making the black Hannah Montana movie or something else for children. Its not that there are no black actors who can play the role, its that there are no black actors with name value. What black actors have name value these days? After the two big ones who do 1 or 2 movies a year, there’s Terrence Howard, who is over a decade older than TI, and Tyrese, who started as a musician just like TI. The days of pulling a guy from a show on Fox or the smaller networks is over because those shows don’t exist anymore. Also, since his company is producing the film, he is likely helping to finance it, which entices Screen Gems to distribute it.

As far as his MTV show, I think it is a good thing that something like that is going to be on TV, because kids need to see that he is a guy who has it all and now he is going to jail because of his own paranoia. They are chronicling him going to schools and community centers spreading a good message to the youth, that going to jail isn’t cool. There are people in the MTV viewing audience who could be going through a similar situation, only they won’t be coming home to a mansion, multiple successful businesses, and the ability to ask and receive 50 grand a show in almost any venue in the country. The MTV show will reach a wider audience than he can on his own, even if he was to visit 5 schools with 1500 students a day.

Zareh said: Its not that there are no black actors who can play the role, its that there are no black actors with name value. What black actors have name value these days?

T.I. has "name value"? So you are basically saying black actors don’t stand a chance then. This is truly a sad day if everyone thinks like that. I have a hard time believing anyone is going to go see this movie because it stars T.I. and I am willing to bet there are thousands of young black actors in America (and everywhere else for that matter) that could fill his shoes in this movie and actually deserve a chance.

Compared to the other black actors in his age range that are out there, yes, he does. His first movie, "ATL", did $21 million and over a million DVDs for what was essentially a PG-13 southern remake of Boyz N Da Hood with commercials that were 15 seconds of clips from his latest music video and 15 seconds of him, Diana Ross’ son, and a girl who was best known for being in a Jay-Z video 3 years earlier. His last album sold almost 500,000 copies its first week, in a time when albums aren’t selling like that anymore. And I know album sales usually don’t translate to massive box office, but rap fans feel a greater connection with the artists as characters, so T.I. in a gangsta heist film will work. The audience for this movie is going to be sitting around on a Friday and someone will say "I wanna go see ‘Bone Deep’" and another person will ask what that is and they’ll say "that’s that movie with T.I. in it" and everyone there will know what he’s talking about, which wouldn’t happen if they casted an unknown, or even someone with some TV experience, like a Jamie Hector or someone like that. A movie like this doesn’t need to be a big hit to be considered a success, especially since they’ll probably only do 1500 prints and only serve the areas where it will do well.

Zareh, just so you know I don’t disagree with you that T.I. will sell. That’s why I wrote the headline like that. It just frustrates me that there are out-of-work actors that could really benefit from a role like that and probably do it far better than T.I. I mean, the kid isn’t an awful actor, but let’s face it, he isn’t all that great. He is replaceable is the point and when you say "there are no black actors with name value" I assume you mean in his age group. Wouldn’t it be nice if that changed?

This is an interesting (and fair) take that I’m surprised more people do not bring up. Why is the film industry immune to this while the NFL, NBA, MLB etc are not? There are a ton of struggling black actors who could probably act circles around a guy like T.I. who are getting ignored by a system that prefers the scandalous because it’s an easy way to make extra money. And HOW much do they actually profit anyway? This movie stars Matt Dillon.

Matt Dillon being your lead = no money at the box office … which makes the entire decision pointless to begin with.