Curtis Jackson, aka 50 cent is definitely best known as a rapper, businessman, and actor.
But before he found success with Power, probably his most notable role was in Get Rich or Die
Trying.
But, a role of his that people rarely talk about is his role in All Things Fall Apart,
not to be confused with Things Fall Apart, a book that still haunts me from English class.
Most people who do remember this movie, only remember the fact that despite everything
50 did to prepare for the role, it was a commercial failure.
So to start with, before the film even came out, there was controversy over the title.
Initially, the movie was supposed to be called Things Fall Apart, which of course, is the
same title as Chinua Achebe’s 1958 novel, Things Fall apart.
I’m sure many of you have read this book, but for those who haven’t, it depicts the
pre-colonial life of the Igbo people, through the lens of Okonkwo, one of the community
leaders.
The novel also depicts the arrival of Christian missionaries, and the subsequent colonization.
Things fall apart is credited with starting the Nigerian literary renaissance, and is
one of the first African novels to become globally acclaimed.
The book has sold over 20 millions copies, and was named as one of Time’s 100 best
English-Language novels.
With all that being said, it’s understandable why there was pushback on a 50 Cent football
movie having the same name as a novel that’s been lauded for depicting the insidiousness
of European colonialism.
Chinua Achebe’s legal team reached out to 50, who actually wrote the film, urging him
to change the film’s name.
50 Cent offered him a million dollars to keep the name, which Achebe took as an insult.
The name of the film was eventually changed to All Things Fall Apart.
To be fair, Achebe got the title for all things fall apart from the Poem the second coming
by william butler yeats, so he didn’t 100% come up with it on his own either.
But I can still see how after things fall apart became such a widely read novel, how
Achebe would have wanted to avoid the movie being confused with his book.
All Things Fall Apart is still basically the same title, though.
All things fall apart was a 2011 direct-to-video film starring 50 cent, Ray Liotta, and Lynn
Whitfield.
Aside from writing it, 50 also produced and financed the film.
He stars as Dion, a college football player who’s set to be an NFL Star.
It all comes tumbling down when he’s diagnosed with cancer.
There’s other family drama, as he has a jealous younger brother and step dad who basically
sees him as a meal ticket.
Though Dion is informed he’ll likely never play football again because of his cancer,
he keeps up hope.
50 Cent said the character of Dion is based off one of his childhood friends who died
from cancer.
So I mean, on the outside, it seems like a compelling enough storyline with a decent
conflict that might tug at your heart strings.
Nothing too original, but it seems good enough for like BET movie or Lifetime movie standards.
The majority of the buzz surrounding the movie came from the shocking transformation 50 Cent
underwent to play Dion.
He lost 54 pounds in just 9 weeks, going from 214 pounds down to 160.
He achieved this by going on a liquid diet and running three hours daily on the treadmill,
which health professionals obviously do not recommend, so don’t do that.
It’s relatively common for actors to gain or lose weight for film roles.
Examples are Anne Hathaway in Les Mis, Christian Bale in the Machinist, and American Hustle,
and Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones’ diary.
These roles were all critically acclaimed, and considered iconic performances for the
respective actors.
While it is common for actors to change their bodies, it’s typically done for Hollywood
films that are likely to have bigger audiences.
They also tend to have bigger budgets, meaning the actors are usually better compensated
for the amount of stress they put their bodies under.
All things fall apart definitely wasn’t a film of this caliber.
As I said, 50 cent financed it himself.
The film had an estimated budget of 7 million dollars.
While this might sound like a lot, that’s a small budget, slightly higher than that
of most indie films.
The average budget for an Indie film is around 2 million dollars.
For comparison, Cars 2 and Green Lantern, which both also came out the same year as
all things fall apart, had a budget of 200 million.
The majority of the buzz surrounding all things fall apart was regarding 50 Cent’s extreme
transformation for the role.
He underwent a drastic weight loss, and had some of his tattoos removed so production
wouldn’t have to cover them.
50 said that losing the weight for the film role was harder than the weight loss he experienced
as a result of a liquid diet after being shot in the jaw back in 2000.
He said, “This time it was a lot tougher for me.
I had to discipline myself not to actually have myself be in the physical state to convey
the energy I felt.
It’s a passion project for me.”
He said that during his weight loss process, he read interviews with other actors who had
done the same for pointers and support.
When 50 cent tweeted a picture showing off his weight loss, it sparked conversations
condemning crash diets, as well as a lot of memes and jokes about his looks.
He told the Huffington Post, “I had so much muscle on me that it was hard for me to lose
definition even as I got lighter and slimmer.
I started running to suppress my appetite.
Towards the end it was really difficult.
It was like, if I don’t get close enough to what my best friend looked like to me at
that point before he passed, then I’m not doing the story any justice.”
While losing a massive amount of weight for a role does show dedication, it can’t completely
save a performance, or an entire film.
All Things Fall Apart only has an audience score of 58% on Rotten Tomatoes.
However, it hasn’t been reviewed by enough professionals to have a critic’s score.
Critic Brian Ondorf said, “Straining to be meaningful until its blue in the face,
All Things Fall Apart is a hackneyed, stilted production, held back in great part by Jackson's
decision to insert himself in the lead role.”
I agree that 50 playing the lead role was a miss.
One, he’s no Denzel Washington, so the performance could’ve been better.
Two, it’s easy to forget 50’s playing a college senior when he was in his mid-thirties
during filming, and very clearly looks it.
Most of the reviews I read of the film weren’t overly harsh on it, but weren’t overly praising
either.
Most seemed to be of the opinion that the movie was simply average.
Several reviews criticized the acting and the cliche plot, but praised the emotional
aspect of the movie.
There were other reviews criticizing how cheap the film looked, but like I said, it was low
budget.
For every person that said the movie was great, there was another that said it was unwatchable
or not worth the dollar 27 they spent to get it at Redbox.
50 Cent said he didn’t expect to win any awards for the role despite the grueling transformation
he underwent for the role.
He said, “Well, you know, I haven’t received accolades that come with the success that
I’ve had in music.
It would be a surprise to win any acting awards.”
I mean, he was right to not expect any awards for that performance because it wasn’t going
to happen.
I don’t think there was ever any conversation about him receiving awards for this performance.
He did say though that it was reward enough to just have people know about the role and
his friend.
50 Cent is actually listed as #6 on Whatculture’s list of “9 Actors Who Sacrificed Everything
for Terrible Movies.”
They calledAll Things Fall Apart “a melodramatic, unoriginal Oscar-baiter with emotional revelations
which fall unfortunately flat”.
Though 50 Cent never outright said he expected to win any awards for this role, the implication
is usually there whenever an actor takes on a role they have to go to extremes to prepare
for, or abnormally demanding to film.
So despite 50s false humility and claims he didn’t expect to be rewarded for the role,
a lot of people saw right through it.
Despite its touching story, which for many didn’t land, All Things Fall Apart is best
remembered as “The movie 50 cent lost a lot of weight for because he thought he was
going to get an oscar” or “the movie 50 cent lost a lot of weight for just for no
one to watch it”.
Even a decade after the film’s release, 50 Cent is still bothered over all the jokes
people have made about the failure of All Things Fall Apart.
In 2021, he called out people who made fun of his weight loss.
He reposted a headline about himself and the film and captioned it, “See how people make
fun of discipline, but can’t even lose weight to look good.
Then if you call them fat your shaming them get the F out of here!”
I can’t even make sense of what he’s trying to say, other than that his feelings are hurt
that we didn’t go watch his movie.
I’m not going to deny people we’re making fun of his weight loss.
But for the most part, People were making fun of the irony in doing all that for a small
budget film that very few people saw, as well as him not having the acting chops to support
his physical transformation.
I truly don’t get his point.
Like, is he saying only physically fit people can clown him?
Is he expressing anger over not being able to call people fat without consequence?
It’s unclear.also for a project that meant so much to him, he didn’t take time to reiterate
that, and instead just to shame people back.
He also used the wrong “you’re”.
It’s also very rich of 50 Cent to make a statement about people talking about his looks,
just to do the same in that same exact sentence.
But it’s on brand for him.
He’s made fun of Madonna’s looks several times, the most recent being a few weeks ago.
He’s actually been talking about her publicly on social media since 2019, and made a post
about her a couple months after that Instagram post about people making fun of him.
More generally, 50 Cent has made disgusting public comments about several other people
from Teairra Mari to his own son, so he’s got no room to worry about how people are
talking about him.
I get that he could be hurt about this since the movie is a tribute to his friend and that’s
why he lost all the weight, but still, he’s a hypocrite for getting mad.
Truly, and this is expecting a lot from 50 Cent, if he wanted to make an important statement
about this, he could have.
Instead of responding to the jokes by putting other people down, he could have used it as
a reminder that we never know what people are going through based on looks.
Yes, 50 Cent made it clear he was losing weight for a role, but he was doing it to look as
close as possible to someone suffering with cancer.
Just a year before he made his lil clapback post, several people had made fun of Chadwick
Boseman’s drastic weight loss, unaware he was suffering from cancer.
When he passed in August of 2020, it ignited conversations about not making fun of people’s
appearance, because they may have underlying health issues, and it’s also disrespectful
in general.
Though 50 wasn’t sick, he could have used his platform to shut down the jokes and mean
comments out of respect for those who are, who could potentially see them.
Instead, he just used his platform to assume people weren’t as disciplined as him.
i also think that’s a weird statement to make considering the way he lost his weight
wasn’t disciplined, but extreme and unhealthy.
And it’s not a reach to say 50 would’ve been aware of the Chadwick Situation, especially
since he posted to Instagram when Chadwick died and said he’d been looking forward
to working with him.
While 50 Cent has been honest about All Things Fall Apart being a passion project dedicated
to his friend, I think it’s fair to call it a vanity project also.
I personally don’t think he did it without the expectation of any acclaim for the role.
But hey, I guess as long as 50 cent feels like he did his friend proud, that’s all
that matters.
After leaving Power, he says he’s got several other offers on the table, so I guess according
to him you’ll be able to see him on the small screen soon if that’s what you’re
into.
So, that is it for me today dolls.
Let me know if you’ve ever seen All Things Fall Apart.
You’ll be the first person I know who has.
Also, exciting announcement, you can now become a member of my channel!
If you’re interested, you can click the link in the description, or the join button
on my channel.
But anyways, thank you dolls so much for watching.
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with me there.
Love you dolls, bye!