My first thought should be to congratulate Halle Berry on her pregnancy, which she finally, officially announced on Access Hollywood Tuesday. But instead, I'm thinking primarily about John Singleton, who stands to lose by the news. The Boyz n the Hood director is having some bad luck of late -- in case you didn't hear, he accidentally killed a woman recently -- and Berry's bun in the oven has unfortunately affected Singleton's latest project. He was set to direct Tulia, a Southern courtroom drama with Berry and Billy Bob Thornton, but now, thanks to the actress' unavailability for the next six months or so, the film has been postponed -- if not canceled. According to TMZ, Lionsgate has definitely halted production, which was scheduled to begin shooting in October, with no word on when it would resume. The gossip news site did learn, though, that the project hasn't been shelved entirely.

I had been excited for Singleton when he took over Tulia from Carl Franklin. Here, I was thinking he could work with the reunited Berry and Thornton, who paired up on Monster's Ball, and direct the actress to another Oscar nomination (she won for Ball). And then his career would pick up again, proving that his status as youngest director to ever be nominated for the directing Oscar was not a fluke. Maybe it wouldn't get him another nomination, but it would hopefully get him enough respect to finally get him his Luke Cage greenlight. Now, even if Singleton does remain attached to Tulia, it won't be bringing him to any Academy Awards until at least 2010. Currently, Singleton is also having trouble as a producer. He worked with filmmaker Franc. Reyes on the new release Illegal Tender, which has only made $2.5 million in its first two weeks -- most of it earned opening weekend before a near-60% drop. Considering Reyes' previous film, Empire, grossed seven times that amount, Singleton could be blamed.

[via WENN]

When Boyz n the Hood exploded onto American movie screens 25 15 (!) years ago, John Singleton instantly because one of the country's best-known black filmmakers. Though his later works have been of uneven quality, he nevertheless remains one of the faces of African-American cinema -- that said, the number of young black and Latino filmmakers is rising. According to the LA Times, however, the number of minorities among studio executives remains incredibly low -- their research found a single African-American or Latino executive at 20th Century Fox, New Line and Paramount, and none at Universal, Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures.

Thanks to his new deal with Universal, though, Singleton is suddenly in a position to act as a sort of unofficial exec: He's financing and producing a series of five low-budget ($15 million or less) films on which he'll make "all the creative decisions." According to the terms of the deal, Universal (or their genre arms, Rogue and Focus) has already agreed to market and release the films, regardless of style or content. Um, wow. Though Singleton probably couldn't have scored this deal had he not financed and produced Hustle & Flow (and not know Universal Chairman Marc Shmuger from his days at Sony, where Shmuger worked on Boyz n the Hood), he's nevertheless being given what seems to be extraordinary power here -- it'll be fascinating to see the films that come out of the deal, and how successful they are (the first, Illegal Tender, is now filming). If the series makes money, look for other studios to suddenly become interested in young black and Latino audiences.

[via Hollywood Wiretap]