Production and Release
When the film went into production, Melvin Van Peebles had not made a film since Don't Play Us Cheap. Van Peebles instead worked on theater and television productions, wrote novels and traded on the floor of the American Stock Exchange. His son, Mario Van Peebles, wrote the screenplay for Identity Crisis during the production of Jaws: The Revenge, and offered it to his father. They formed Block & Chip Productions to produce the film. They cowrote a book about the making of the film's production entitled No Identity Crisis. The film was screened at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival. When Melvin Van Peebles was unable to negotiate a theatrical deal at the Festival, it was announced that the film would be released direct-to-video. Mario Van Peebles stated that he never assumed that it would be released theatrically. The film was promoted as a "rap-packed action comedy in the tradition of House Party".
Read more about this topic: Identity Crisis (film)
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