Evolution of Django

Recently character actor Joe Santos passed away. Santos was probably best know as Lt. Dennis Becker on The Rockford Files. When he passed I was curious so I looked at his IMDB profile where I found out he was in a 1972 movie called The Legend of Nigger Charlie starring Fred Williamson in the title role. Seriously - that was the name of the movie.

The plot of TLONC:

A slave kills a white man in self-defense and heads West towards freedom, pursued by a professional slave hunter.

OK - I can see a pitch with that plot getting a green-light. But with that movie name? 1972 was obviously a different time. So different that not only was the movie made but also a sequel in 1973 - The Soul of Nigger Charley.

No way either of those movies gets made today. No way! You would have to first obviously change the name to something unoffensive and for good measure instead of a professional slave hunter lets change that character to a bounty hunter and what the heck - let's make them buddies.

That's how you evolve from TLONC to something like this.