Michael Jai White From Black Belt Fighter To Real Movie Star

Over the years, Michael Jai White has cultivated a wide-ranging career. From his roles as martial artist, actor, writer, producer, and even director, White is clearly uninterested in the status quo. So how did the Black Dynamite star rise to fame? Will there be a Black Dynamite Two? And whatever happened to its spiritual sequel, The Outlaw Johnny Black?

White would pick up martial arts for the first time at age seven, and he hasn’t stopped since. White has brought the discipline he learned from martial arts into every aspect of his life, including his career in Hollywood. Always striving to do more and to be better, White would develop his passion for acting into an undeniable talent for the craft that would blossom into writing, producing, and directing roles.

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Now, he’s opened his own studio, Jaigantic Studios, ready to hone a new generation of filmmakers and create more projects outside the Hollywood studio system. With the release of his new movie The Outlaw Johnny Black hopefully on the horizon, read on and find out how White became the movie star he is today.

Michael Jai White Is a Born Fighter

     New Line Home Entertainment  

White learned martial arts from an early age, first briefly studying Jujitsu at age seven. The next year, White would begin studying first Shotokan and later Kyokushin forms, the latter of which he would get his first black belt in at age 13. The actor has since earned black belts in Shotokan, ITF and WTF Taekwondo, Kobudo, Goju Ryu, Tang Soo Do, Wushu, and the Superfoot system.

White spent his school-age years participating in fighting tournaments and teaching Karate. When he graduated from college, the actor began working as a teacher to emotionally disturbed children, which White describes as “one of his proudest achievements.” But this teacher had another passion he had yet to feed: acting.

White Expands His Acting Horizons

     New Line Cinema  

White had toyed with acting in college, but never considered it to be a viable career option. And yet, the young martial artist and teacher couldn’t keep his desire to act tamped down. White got his start in acting through fairly standard means, landing roles in commercials, Off-Broadway theater, and, eventually, TV and film.

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It was with this early success that led White to feel comfortable pursuing acting full-time in Los Angeles. After several guest spots on popular television shows like Saved by the Bell and CSI: Miami, White would have his first starring role in the HBO biopic Tyson. Two years later, and the young actor would break ground as one of the first Black comic book superheroes on the big screen, in the film Spawn.

White would take increasingly substantial roles in TV and film, at times appearing opposite action genre favorites like Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme. He even appears in a small role in The Dark Knight as the mobster Gambol, perhaps one of the Joker’s most unfortunate victims in the film. While White had proven himself as a comedic actor already in projects like Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married?, it would be in 2009 that he would prove himself a talented comedic writer with the Airplane of blaxploitation films, Black Dynamite.

White Is More Than Just a Movie Star

     Destination FilmsApparition  

Michael continued to flex his writing chops. He would go on to write the short film 3 Bullets and the feature Never Back Down: No Surrender. Additionally, White and the rest of the team behind Black Dynamite created an adult animated show of the same name for Adult Swim, with The Boondocks producer Carl Jones at the helm. While not the funniest show on Adult Swim, it certainly was one of the coolest and most action-packed.

White never stopped acting during this period, taking on roles as both a comedic talent and an action star. He would reprise his role as Marcus in the sequel Why Did I Get Married Too? and in the TBS/OWN sitcom For Better or Worse, all while continuing his career as an action star in movies like Blood and Bone, Triple Threat, and Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown, the latter being his directorial debut.

White also returned to superhero roles during this time, both live action and animated. It began with his role as Ben Turner AKA the Bronze Tiger in CW’s Arrow, which he reprised in voice form for the animated film Batman: Soul of the Dragon. A year later, White appeared in Marvel’s Midnight Suns video game as the voice of Blade. Most recently, White wrote and starred in As Good As Dead, an action flick that follows a mysterious loner who agrees to train a local teen in martial arts, only for his past to come back with a vengeance.

Jaigantic Studios and Black Dynamite 2

     Samuel Goldwyn Films  

Now, White has moved on to the next phase of his creative career: founding his own production studio. Jaigantic Studios launched in 2021 with the stated goal of building a “sustainable, future-forward International Film & Television Production Hub” that can lift those voices traditionally marginalized in media.

The studio’s first film, The Outlaw Johnny Black, is set to release in 2023 and reunites White with Black Dynamite co-writer and co-star Byron Minns. The film follows the titular character on his quest for revenge and stars White, Minns, and Anika Noni Rose.

On the topic of a potential Black Dynamite sequel, White told UPI that the film was stalled for the time being but that this script is “better than the original." White’s mustachioed martial artist is nothing short of delightful, as fans of the original film and television series will tell you, so it’s hopefully only a matter of time until the production stars align for the highly anticipated sequel.