From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is The Business.

In his sprawling new docu series, filmmaker Justin Simeon examines the history of black Hollywood.

Rich with archival footage and interviews with accomplished black filmmakers and scholars,

Simeon's series shows how much and how little has changed, mirroring his own career struggles.

These pioneers had it a lot worse than I did. And I was just so curious about, like,

this ebb and flow of, you know, black genius and appropriation and sort of being iced out

and having to break our way back in that sort of happens over and over and over again.

The docu-series also aims to shed light on present-day controversies, including the Oscars,

so white movement and incidents of blackface among celebrities.

But first we banter.

Stick around. It's the business from KCRW.

I am joined by my colleague in banter,

Matt Bellany. Hello, Matt. Hi there. So this past week or so, there's been quite an upset in the industry as Joaquin Phoenix, who is not the steadiest guy on his feet that he frequently has cold feet,

he dropped out of a project which was being directed by Todd Haynes and produced by the legendary Christine Vachon.

They've made very successful and award-winning films with gay themes, including Far From Heaven and Carol.

And at the last minute, Joaquin decided he was not going to do this.

Now, he's gotten cold feet, as I mentioned, on multiple films, including Joker.

He had to be talked back off the ledge on that one.

But what's strange in this case is this was his project

that he brought to these two big names to make. And yes, it's a gay-themed movie. Whether that

has anything to do with his anxiety at the last minute is unclear. But there are so many producers

who are fuming over this, who are enraged, that he would take them

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