Terrence Howard spins songs and yarns at 'Showdown at the Grand' premiere in Memphis

Actor Terrence Howard arrived at the Malco Powerhouse cinema at precisely 6:15 p.m. Wednesday, for what was billed as the "world theatrical premiere" of his latest movie, "Showdown at the Grand."

Waiting for him in the theater lobby were about 200 fans, friends, film industry professionals and various local notables, plus a baby grand piano. Tajuan Stout Mitchell, the former City Council member who was an organizer of the event, was at the ready, with a microphone in her hand. "Terrence Howard!" she announced, as the actor entered the building. "And he arrived in a Rolls-Royce — so pimpin' ain't dead!"

The joke was in part a reference to Howard's Academy Award-nominated performance as DJay, a pimp who dreams of being a recording artist, in the 2005 made-in-Memphis movie "Hustle & Flow." Another joking reference to that role occurred onscreen during "Showdown at the Grand," when the "picture house" owner played by Howard complimented an action star played by Dolph Lundgren about his performance in a Rambo-esque Middle Eastern thriller titled "Iraqnophobia."

"I swear you were robbed of the Academy Award that year," the Howard character said. The line garnered a good bit of knowing laughter Wednesday night, from an audience very much aware that Howard was in their midst, front and center. (For the record, the 2005 Best Actor Oscar went to Philip Seymour Hoffman, for "Capote.")

"I loved listening to y'all laugh," Howard told the audience, after the film, which is a love letter to traditional moviegoing as well as a sometimes bloody action-comedy. "Please don't let them take this from us," he said, referring to the threat movie houses face from the streaming services and from the decline in attendance accelerated by the COVID-era shutdown.

Produced by Memphis & Shelby County Film and Television Commission board members Gale Jones Carson and Stout Mitchell as a fundraiser for the commission's workshop/apprenticeship program, Wednesday night's event was both a meet-and-greet for fans who had paid $150 to attend and a reunion for Howard and such "Hustle & Flow" collaborators as writer-director Craig Brewer, co-star Elise Neal and rapper Al Kapone, who composed "Whoop That Trick" for the movie.

“I consider this a very happy reunion, seeing my brother, Terrence,” said Neal, a Memphis actress who credits much of her love of theater to the arts program at her alma mater, Overton High School.

She and the other actors and filmmakers present were buoyed by the news that arrived during the pre-movie party that the SAG-AFTRA strike apparently had ended, enabling productions to resume and actors to go back to work. “What I really want to see is more film and television productions brought to the city of Memphis,” Neal said.

Also present were two villains from "Showdown at the Grand," actors Jon Sklaroff, from New York, and Mike Ferguson, based in Hollywood. The lean-and-hungry-looking Sklaroff and the burly Ferguson play two "goons" who use violent methods to try to convince theater owner George Fuller (Howard) so sell his historic movie house, the Warner Grand. Fuller fights back, with functioning prop weapons from old action movies starring "The Force from the North," Claude Luc Hallyday (Lundgren).

Sklaroff and Ferguson are in Memphis all week, to accompany the Howards as they promote "Showdown at the Grand" on local radio and television, and in public appearances Nov. 9, at the Summer Quartet Drive-In (where "Showdown" will lead a double feature that includes "Hustle & Flow"), and Nov. 10 and 11 at the Malco Paradiso. Distributed by Shout! Studios, the $1.7-million independent film, shot in Los Angeles and written and directed by Orson Oblowitz, had made only a couple of festival appearances before Howard brought it to the city where he was "born" as an actor, he said. (It becomes available to rent online Nov. 10.)

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The hope is to book the movie in other cities, to build interest and emphasize the film’s pro-moviegoing message. “We’re taking the movie on the road to create a following or a cult following,” explained Sklaroff, a veteran actor whose credits include “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.” “An old-school traveling road show.”

It's doubtful many future road shows will be quite as showy as the one in Memphis, however. Most women were dressed glamorously, including Mira Pak Howard, Terrence Howard's wife, who wore an emerald-green Christian Dior chiffon gown. Her husband, meanwhile, was in a velvet tuxedo; he added white gloves at 7:15 p.m. when he sat down at the baby grand, which had been provided by Circle Music Center, with each of its strings painstakingly toned down a half-note, per Howard's request, to better suit Howard's voice.

Introduced by Film Commissioner Linn Sitler — "Auntie Linn," in Howard's words — as "the man, the musician, the actor," Howard performed several original songs, most of which were dedicated to his wife and prefaced with philosophical musings involving DNA, "the Creator," the kinship between man and "simian," and other topics. On a love song that expressed the loneliness of the "thousand trillion lifetimes" he suffered through before he met Mira, he was joined by Memphis vocalist Doll McCoy of the a cappella fusion group Adajyo.

Another song reckoned with humanity as the product of both cosmic miracles and earthy urges. "You know, the size of the testes is about the size of a grape," Howard said. "A healthy male produces 1,500 sperm per heartbeat. As a result, you sometimes don't make the proper choice to get rid of those 1,500." But when those kids do arrive, "take care of them," Howard said.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Terrence Howard's 'Showdown at the Grand' has premiere in Memphis