The forecast is for a white summer -- at least at the movies.
With the notable exception of "Karate Kid," headlined by Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan, most of the big-budget films hitting over the next few months star Caucasian actors.
Russell Crowe, Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts and Leonardo DiCaprio will all trot out new offerings. Their minority counterparts like Denzel Washington and Will Smith?
Missing.
Ironically, the lack of diversity seems to have gone unnoticed amid the uproar over the casting of "The Prince of Persia" and "The Last Airbender," which cast white actors in roles where the source material featured characters of a different ethnicity.
"It seems out of step with where we are as a culture," Craig Detweiler, professor of film history at Pepperdine University, told TheWrap. "We have the first African American president, and yet there are a shortage of African American, Asian and Latino stars. For all Hollywood's progressive politics, its casting decisions look remarkably retrograde."
Though tentpole season has rarely brought with it a rainbow coalition of actors, this season is looking particularly monochromatic.
In the past, non-white actors such as Eddie Murphy, Chris Tucker and Jennifer Lopez have appeared above the credits on major releases. This year is noticeably lacking in a "Rush Hour," "Nutty Professor" -- or even a dead-in-the water thriller like Washington's "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" to make the constellation of summer movie stars more diverse.
Instead, actors of color have been relegated to supporting roles or starring parts in a handful of low-budget films such as "Just Wright" that are targeted at non-white audiences.
True, Hollywood did come through with some strong supporting roles for actors of color this summer.
"Iron Man 2" features Samuel L. Jackson and Don Cheadle as superheroes, "Grown Ups" has Chris Rock as one of five immature protagonists, Murphy is back as the voice of the fun-loving donkey in "Shrek Forever After" and Ken Watanabe plays a mysterious operator in "Inception."
They are complementary pieces in the film, but theirs is not the big name above the title.
"These are expensive movies, and there is a sense that a Caucasian suburban audience won't cross over to see a film with black actors," Chad Hartigan, a box office analyst with Exhibitor Relations, told TheWrap. "But it won't be as hard to get minorities to see 'Iron Man 2.'"
But the dearth of films with African American, Asian or Latino leads isn't just a case of institutional racism. It's also about a growing lack of bankable actors of color. Smith is irrefutably one of the biggest stars in the world, but other non-white stars have a spottier record at the box office of late, Hartigan said.
Washington's films consistently gross around $90 million domestically -- but that's been standard for the past decade, during which time ticket prices have increased. That means his audience is actually shrinking.
