{"id":187991,"date":"2025-08-30T21:25:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T21:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/187991\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T21:25:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T21:25:10","slug":"marques-houston-on-run-ending-possible-sequel-and-his-new-thriller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/187991\/","title":{"rendered":"Marques Houston on ‘Run’ Ending, Possible Sequel and His New Thriller"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSPOILER ALERT:\u00a0<\/strong>This article contains spoilers for \u201cRun<\/a>,\u201d now playing in theaters.<\/p>\n

\n\tMarques Houston<\/a> is on a mission to bring more Black audiences to theaters.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat goal has served as his north star as the CEO of Footage Films<\/a>, a production company where he executive produces and writes the majority of the titles.<\/p>\n

\n\tFounded and chaired by Chris Stokes, the independent film company is behind Tubi and BET+ originals including \u201cThe Stepdaughter,\u201d \u201cForever Us,\u201d \u201cVicious Affair,\u201d the \u201cThe Stepmother\u201d franchise and \u201cSacrifice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHouston is an R&B artist, producer and actor who catapulted into Hollywood in the 1990s with his first acting role as the voice of Khalil in the 1992 film \u201cB\u00e9b\u00e9\u2019s Kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHis most notable role \u2013 which is still referenced in pop culture\u2013 is his portrayal of Roger from the popular \u201990s sitcom \u201cSister, Sister.\u201d He played a persistent yet annoying neighbor who became popular largely due to the catchphrase, \u201cGo home, Roger,\u201d which \u201cSister, Sister\u201d stars Tia and Tamera Mowry frequently shouted at him.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s the greatest feeling in the world to be a part of history and culture with \u2018Sister, Sister,\u2019 \u2018You Got Served,\u2019 and my music group Immature,\u201d Houston tells Variety. \u201cKnowing that you have a part in history makes you feel like you did something great \u2013 that you made your mark. That\u2019s all you can take away from this industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBy 2010, he embarked on his behind-the-scenes filmmaking journey after joining forces with Stokes. <\/p>\n

\n\tWith a wide range of horror and thrillers under the production banner, sci-fi suspense feature \u201cRun\u201d is \u2019 latest project to hit theaters on Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRun\u201d is a story about the nation being overtaken by an alien attack. After Melissa leaves her fianc\u00e9 Andre at the altar, her best friends take her on a cabin getaway to help clear her head. But their girls\u2019 trip takes a shocking turn when one of their friends is found maimed in the woods. With a surprise visit from Andre and his crew, the group of friends try their best to survive.<\/p>\n

\n\tHouston and Stokes work in tandem on scripts, often sharing similar approaches that the actor described as \u201ccreatively seeing eye-to-eye and sharing the same vision.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tTheir ability to work closely together stems from being longtime collaborators. Their relationship can be traced back to 2004 when Houston starred in Stokes\u2019 blockbuster hit \u201cYou Got Served.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite starring in several projects from Footage Films, Houston admitted that he had not planned to have a leading role in \u201cRun,\u201d but Stokes suggested it to him.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was like, \u2018Wait a minute. Oh, no. I wasn\u2019t expecting to be in this.\u2019 But he was like, \u2018I didn\u2019t want to tell you because I didn\u2019t want you to write it for yourself. I wanted you to write the character.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\tOnce Houston signed on to play Andre, the two cast the remaining actors Annie Ilonzeh, Erica Mena, Drew Sidora, Erica Pinkett, Ken Lawson, Claudia Jordan and Obba Babatund\u00e9.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHouston spoke with Variety about the film\u2019s concept, that cliffhanger with Andre, his push for Black-led horrors and thrillers to become more mainstream and more.<\/p>\n

\t\tWhere did the concept of \u201cRun\u201d come from?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was Chris\u2019 idea. We\u2019re both big fans of sci-fi. He had this idea of taking this situation with aliens and putting it in a group setting with friends in a cabin. He gave me this whole concept of he how he wanted to do it. I thought it was dope.<\/p>\n

\t\tDid you all have any influences that you pulled inspiration from for the story?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tNot at all. We like to be as as original as we can, so it\u2019s better to not pull from anything and go with the creativity. Chris will give me this whole story outline, and it\u2019s my job as a screenwriter to pair that with the dialog and direction. It\u2019s the both of us sitting down and being like, \u201cThis is what we want to talk about. This is a story we want to tell. Let\u2019s get it together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tWhat were some of the biggest challenges being involved behind and in front of the camera?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was more difficult because I had to do a lot of action and running. Once the script was done, I told everybody, \u201cNow that this is all done, I have to go into actor mode. Y\u2019all just focus on everything else.\u201d That\u2019s why you have to trust your team. The team that you choose to be around while making movies is important. It\u2019s very key, so you can focus on the character.<\/p>\n

\t\tIn the end, Andre sacrifices himself to save Melissa from the aliens. What made you all take that direction, especially after their decision to be together if they made it out alive?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tWe wanted to set up for part two. Chris wanted to continue the storyline. The movie ends abruptly. You don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on. You don\u2019t know what happens when I go into the house. At that point, anything could happen. It\u2019s like a Marvel movie where you\u2019re left on that edge and you\u2019re like, \u201cWait, what\u2019s happening next?\u201d We wanted to leave<\/a> it so that you just don\u2019t know where these characters fall, so that there could be a sequel.<\/p>\n

\t\tWhat ideas or themes are being discussed if a sequel were to happen?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tWe\u2019ve talked about more of an invasion by the aliens \u2014 maybe taking it out of the woods and putting it more into the context of the world. We\u2019re bouncing around ideas right now. It\u2019s still fresh, but we know what characters survive.<\/p>\n

\t\tYou have another thriller, \u201cLeave,\u201d to be released at the top of next year. What inspired the concept of the film?\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLeave\u201d is more of a psychological thriller based on true events that happened in Freemanville, Fla. After the Civil War, that was one of the first places where Black people could own and buy property. It\u2019s based on when that happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tHow was your creative process for \u201cLeave\u201d different from your past projects?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s not too much different. Every movie, you do research. We go over the storyline. Once the story is all set, we put it into play with the characters. The creative concept is the same for every movie, but it\u2019s just different ideas that we have to write with. \u201cRun\u201d is original and not based on anything, but it\u2019s sci-fi. \u201cLeave\u201d is based on a time period. It\u2019s different.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tWhat are you hoping to bring to the cinematic experience that viewers will be excited about for the film?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m hoping people will take away the information. It\u2019s knowledge. \u201cLeave\u201d has a lot of subtle hints in there about information that nobody really talks about. I hope people are educated on what happened during that time, how Black people were treated and where they came from. People don\u2019t know a lot about Freemanville and how they [Black people] were able to buy and sell property. African American history is always good to talk about.<\/p>\n

\t\tWhat made you want to center \u201cLeave\u201d on the history of Freemanville, Fla.?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tChris was just trying to do something different. He wanted to make a movie that was\u00a0 empowering and knowledgeable. He wanted this movie to be informational, but also to scare people and have them on the edge of their seats. We love to do thrillers. We love to exhilarate and excite our audiences because the whole thing is putting Black people back in the theaters. There\u2019s an empty slot there for Black people going back to the theaters, getting all their family members together and having a good time. We\u2019re trying to get that energy back that makes people actually want to go to the movies.<\/p>\n

\t\tThere has been a rise in Black-led thrillers and horror films in recent years. Many of Footage Films\u2019 projects reflect that. With your partnerships with BET+ and Tubi, why is it important for Footage Films to push for Black horror and thrillers to become more mainstream?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tWe can do the same thing as other filmmakers. Black people love horror. Maybe you wouldn\u2019t think that, but Black people like to get scared. We get scared in a different way, but we get scared too. It\u2019s important to bring that to the forefront and let people know we could do the same thing. We like our movies to reflect successful Black people as well. It\u2019s not anything against any other Black filmmakers out there because I take off my hat to anybody that\u2019s creating content, jobs for people and opportunities. In our films, we like Black people to be successful and have these situations where you could take a white movie and put it in a Black cast. There\u2019s no difference. It\u2019s all Hollywood. It\u2019s all filmmaking. It\u2019s all creativity. Creativity is more important than Black or white.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tWhat\u2019s the goal or mission of Footage Films when it comes to championing diverse storytelling and talent?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tOur main thing is creating opportunities for all kinds of talent and job opportunities for workers, new producers, upcoming writers and actors to really make their mark in Hollywood with an opportunity that would not have been there if it had not been for Footage Films.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER ALERT:\u00a0This article contains spoilers for \u201cRun,\u201d now playing in theaters. Marques Houston is on a mission to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":187992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[105268,4345,1535,105269,10201,358,3187],"class_list":{"0":"post-187991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-footage-films","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-leave","11":"tag-marques-houston","12":"tag-run","13":"tag-texas","14":"tag-tx"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115119831422317735","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}