A Jamie Foxx Action Blockbuster Is Dominating On Streaming
Jamie Foxx has one of the top movies currently on streaming.
This article is more than 2 years old
Jamie Foxx is the President of the United States. Hey, it could happen. In fact, in 2013, that’s exactly what happened and now, the film that gave us Foxx as President is climbing the Hulu charts as it sits at #3 as the streamers most popular.
White House Down pairs Jamie Foxx, as President James Sawyer, alongside Channing Tatum, as John Cale, a military veteran who is looking to become part of Sawyer’s Secret Service detail.
For the moment, Cale works as a US Capitol police officer who has been assigned to the Speaker of the House, Eli Raphelson (Richard Jenkins). Hoping to impress his daughter Emily (Joey King), Cale sets up a tour of the White House for her while he is off on his interview. When Cale arrives for his interview, he finds that it is to be conducted by an old college acquaintance, Carol Finnerty (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who immediately deems Cale unqualified to protect the President. But things are about to get messy for those up on the hill.
A bomb explodes at the U.S. Capitol causing the rotunda to collapse and put the Capitol in lockdown. As political bodies scattered for their lives, President Sawyer is taken to his Emergency Operations Center by the head of his Presidential Detail Martin Walker (James Woods). Located beneath the Presidential Library, Sawyer and Walker arrive. Walker then calmly executes the remainder of Sawyer’s detail while revealing to Sawyer that he is the leader of the attack on the Capitol. He also explains to Sawyer why – Walker’s son was killed a year prior in a botched mission in Iran.
Cale, who has been separated from his daughter during the turmoil, is able to rescue Sawyer after overhearing Walker’s plans. With the two on the run and trying to survive, Cale’s daughter is caught trying to film the terrorists with her phone. She is taken hostage and used in an attempt to draw Cale out into the open. It works. Cale gives himself up to save his daughter while Sawyer is confronted by Walker one more time. Walker wants Sawyer to launch nuclear missiles against various Iranian cities in response to his son’s death. Sawyer refuses. Now, Cale and Sawyer must find a way to stop Walker from obtaining the launch codes while also figuring out who the real brain behind the attack is.
White House Down is the first of two films that director Rolland Emmerich and scribe James Vanderbilt have worked on together. The second was Independence Day: Resurgence, the sequel to Emmerich’s big 1996 hit Independence Day.
Neither Emmerich nor Vanderbilt are strangers to big films. Emmerich has made his career on films like the aforementioned Independence Day movies as well as other big pics like Stargate, Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow, 10,000 BC, and 2012.
Vanderbilt has also been active on the blockbuster circuit writing big films like The Rundown, The Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel, Murder Mystery, as well as the soon-to-be-released films, Scream and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.
As for big, White House Down carried a hefty price tag. Emmerich’s film cost $150 million to make but only brought in a halfway decent $205 million at the box office. But that’s the beauty of these popular streaming services. One can discover decent movies that they may have missed when it played at the local cineplex.
Nearly 10 years prior to White House Down, Eric Marlon Bishop (aka Jamie Foxx), proved to the world just how talented he was. Fans caught a glimpse of said talent when Foxx joined the cast of the hit sketch series In Living Color, but his true talent shined through when he took on the role of singing legend Ray Charles, in Ray.
Foxx’s performance was so good that he became only the second actor ever to win all five major awards for a leading role. For Ray, Foxx took home the Academy Award, BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild Award, Critics’ Choice Movie Award, and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor.
For a time, though, during his run to winning all those awards, Foxx admits he was a complete embarrassment to the process. “When I was up for the Oscar, I didn’t take it seriously at all,” Foxx said via Indiewire. “I thought there was no way to win that. I took [Oscar season] as an excuse to party… I went to the Golden Globes and there was champagne involved, and I was just wrong on the red carpet. I was disrespectful to the process.”
It took two people to get Foxx back on track. The first was Oprah Winfrey, who called up Foxx to tell him he was “blowing it” for his terrible behavior. As Foxx recalls, “Oprah told me, ‘You really have a great chance to do something that is wonderful and the character you played touched so many people, but not if you act like this.’”
The second person due to a set up by Winfrey. She invited Jamie Foxx to a party at music legend Quincy Jones’ mansion. While Foxx was being congratulated by all the big names in attendance, Oprah had one goal and that was to introduce Foxx to screen legend Sidney Poitier.
“Standing in a tuxedo in the corner was Sidney Poitier,” Foxx remembers. “I walked up to him and he said, ‘I watched your performance and I grew two inches. I leave you with one thing: responsibility.’” That was it. “Oh shit! No more after-parties. I got to get my shit together.” Life-changing.
Ray propelled Jamie Foxx to bigger-budgeted movies as he began experimenting as an action hero. He was in Stealth, Miami Vice, and Law-Abiding Citizen, though he held onto his Ray roots with films like Dreamgirls and The Soloist.
Jamie Foxx would also hold on to his comedy roots in films like Due Date, Horrible Bosses, and its sequel, Horrible Bosses 2. Of course, Foxx would also make some noise with the features Django Unchained and The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Lately, Jaime Foxx has returned to television with the Netflix sitcom, Dad Stop Embarrassing Me, reuniting with his In Living Color castmate David Alan Grier. Foxx shows no sign of slowing down as he has numerous projects lined up to include a return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as he will once again play Max Dillon, whom you may also know as Electro, in the upcoming feature, Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Jamie Foxx is also taking on another heavyweight. This time, Foxx jumps into the ring as Mike Tyson in the Antoine Fuqua mini-series, Tyson.
You can find the presidential Jamie Foxx in White House Down on Hulu.
