The summary and note for this entry were completed with participation from the AFI Academic Network. Summary and note were written by participant Austin Hodaie, a student at Oregon State University, with Jon Lewis as academic advisor.

The following written statement precedes opening credits: “The Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department each has a gang crime division. The Police Department’s division is called C. R. A. S. H. (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums) and the Sheriff’s division is called O. S. S. (Operation Safe Streets). The combined anti-gang force numbers 250 men and women. In the greater Los Angeles area there are over 600 street gangs with almost 70,000 gang members. Last year there were 387 gang-related killings.”
       According to a 30 Mar 1988 HR article, producer Robert H. Solo began developing the idea for Colors in 1984. At the time, he had just finished the film Bad Boys (1983, see entry), shot in Chicago, IL, and starring Sean Penn. Solo had become acquainted with Chicago police officers after filming scenes for Bad Boys at a juvenile prison outside the city. He later received a list of street gangs from the Chicago Police Department and paid for Bad Boys writer Richard DiLello to visit Chicago and investigate the city’s gang problem. Solo and DiLello then developed an idea for a screenplay, sold it to Orion Pictures, and wrote two drafts. Sean Penn agreed to star in the film and suggested Dennis Hopper direct. According to an interview from American Film magazine re-printed on 17 Apr 1988 in the Press-Telegram, Hopper had not found directing work in the U.S. since his 1971 flop, The Last Movie (see entry), which Universal Pictures considered “an attack on Hollywood.”
       In the American Film interview, Hopper stated that when he first read the script for Colors, the two lead characters were a white police officer and a black police officer, and the story was set in Chicago and involved gangs who were selling a “narcotic used in cough syrup.” Hopper suggested the following alterations to the script in order to “make it real”: change the police officers to two white characters – one older, one younger; move the setting to Los Angeles, CA; and change the illegal narcotic to cocaine. As stated in the 30 Mar 1988 HR, Solo hired writer Michael Schiffer to draft a new version of the screenplay with Hopper’s notes in mind. Schiffer researched the story in Los Angeles by meeting with “social workers, gang workers, the Sheriff’s Gang Squad, the [Los Angeles Police Department] Gang Squad…Crash Squad, [and] probation officers,” and Penn and Hopper later followed to conduct their own research. After a second revision to Schiffer’s script, Hopper was satisfied with the changes and agreed to direct.
       As stated in American Film, the budget was just over $9 million. A 3 Mar 1987 HR production chart listing announced that principal production began 23 Feb 1987. According to production notes from AMPAS library files, the film was shot “entirely on the streets” in areas around Los Angeles, CA, including South Central Los Angeles, Watts, Firestone, Carson, Venice, the waterfront at San Pedro, and Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles. Hopper described the locations as very dangerous, saying even police officers refused to visit certain places where the film was shooting unless there were reports of a serious crime, such as murder. On set, production vehicles were parked in a circle, and crew members placed tape around the area to mark territory, while security guards stood watch around the perimeter, according to production notes.
       A youth counselor named Gerard Ivory helped recruit gang members to act in the film, either playing themselves, performing in bit roles, or serving as background actors. Location manager Kojo Lewis described the dress code on set, stating that the production team learned to avoid wearing certain colors depending on the area in which the film was shooting. To remind the filmmakers whose territory they were infringing upon, some gang members would drive past the set late at night, honking car horns and brandishing guns, but no direct violence came to anyone involved in the film shoot. Hopper noted that ten killings occurred nearby throughout the course of production, but they were simply part of ongoing gang violence.
       A 5 Jun 1987 LAT news item announced that background actor Jeffrey Klein sued Sean Penn for striking him on the set. Penn allegedly became upset after Klein took his photograph, argued with Klein, and hit him. Orion Pictures and “other firms involved with producing the film” were also accused of negligence for exposing cast and crew members to Penn’s infamous temper. Klein’s attorney, Mark Licker, stated, “Its sort of like having a dangerous dog where you work, and the dog’s been known to bite before.” A 7 Jul 1987 LAT brief reported that Penn was sentenced to sixty days in jail for striking Klein, but would not have to report to jail until Aug 1987 after he fulfilled prior work commitments. At the time that he hit Klein, Penn had been on probation “for beating a man he thought was trying to kiss his wife, rock star Madonna” in a nightclub. The 5 Jun 1987 LAT also reported that Penn had been arrested on 25 May 1987 for suspected drunk driving. Defending Penn, Hopper described the actor as a “very sweet, dedicated guy,” albeit with a “short fuse.”
       Orion Pictures faced a marketing challenge with Colors which executives compared to the Dec 1986 release of Platoon (1986, see entry), according to a 13 Apr 1988 DV news item. Charles O. Glenn, executive vice president of marketing at Orion, commented on the film’s “’two-pronged publicity and advertising’ campaign” that would appeal to both “streetwise” young viewers and more sophisticated moviegoers. An advertisement placed in the 3 Apr 1988 issue of NYT and certain other publications presented the film as a continuation of Hopper’s auteurist body of work, harkening back to Easy Rider (1969, see entry) and naming Colors as “’the first realistic motion picture about the war against street gangs.’” A television advertisement touted Hopper’s appearances as an actor in well-received films such as Blue Velvet and Hoosiers (1986, see entries) as an incentive to see Colors, even though Hopper did not perform in the film. Ice-T, a popular recording artist featured on the film’s soundtrack, performed a promotional rap for the film that aired as a radio advertisement.
       Controversy arose surrounding the release of the film, and many anticipated violence might erupt in or around screenings, especially because of a recent surge in reported gang activity in Southern California. A 19 Apr 1988 LAT article stated that the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) objected to the film’s release in Southern California, along with Los Angeles’ Sheriff Department, and Lynwood and Compton, CA-based anti-gang organizations. The Guardian Angels, an anti-crime group, protested outside Hopper’s residence in Venice, CA, as well as Penn’s Malibu, CA, home, wielding signs that suggested proceeds from the film should go to organizations dedicated to eradicating gangs, as stated in an 11 Apr 1988 LAT article. One day prior to the release, a spokesperson for Pacific Theatres defended Colors in a 14 Apr 1988 LAT article, saying it was “much more than an exploitation film” and affirmed that proper security measures would be taken at screenings as a precaution. According to an 18 Apr 1988 DV news brief, fifteen theaters canceled plans to screen the film before its release. After the first weekend, three more Southern California theaters dropped the film due to threat of violence, and the police chief of Colma in Northern California banned it after one day of release due to “unruly crowds.”
       Despite early concerns, the film’s opening weekend saw few gang-related incidents. According to a 19 Apr 1988 LAT article, thirteen arrests occurred over the weekend, primarily for “misdemeanor charges of disturbing the peace and alcohol violations.” One shooting took place Sunday, 17 Apr 1988, outside a Detroit, MI, theater where the film was being shown, although a theater employee claimed the incident was unrelated and the involved parties had watched a different film. An incident of vandalism was reported by a 13 May 1988 DV brief, stating that a gang name had been spray painted onto a theater screen following a showing of the film. The screen, 32-feet in width, would have to be replaced at a cost of over $2,000.
       Fulfilling the prophesies of many who protested the film, on 26 Apr 1988, a LAHExam article stated that Charles Vaney Queen (misspelled as Charles Vain Queen), a member of the Crips, one of two street gangs prominently portrayed in Colors, shot and killed David Dawson, a rival gang member of the Bloods, outside a Stockton, CA, theater after viewing the film on 24 Apr 1988. On 27 Dec 1989, a HR brief stated that Vaney was sentenced to “27 years to life” for first-degree murder. Colors was shown by the prosecution in Vaney’s trial, and the convicted killer later attempted to appeal the court’s decision, claiming that the film was “hideously violent” and swayed the jury, as stated in a 5 Aug 1991 DV news item; however, a California state court unanimously ruled that the screening had been “relevant to the case.” The DV item reported Vaney’s sentence as “25 years to life with the possibility of parole,” contradicting the report of HR.
       Critical reception to Colors was mixed. Several reviewers criticized the narrative as being too one-dimensional, but many celebrated the direction, photography, and music and stated that the overall aesthetic of the film was realistic. In a positive review in NYT on 15 Apr 1988, Janet Maslin described “the look of this film” as “genuinely three-dimensional and utterly enveloping” but acknowledged that the story suffered from “narrative vagueness.” An 11 Apr 1988 DV review stated that the film featured “one of the best-ever car chases and plenty of explicit – and appropriate here – violence.” In a negative review for LAT on 15 Apr 1988, Sheila Benson claimed the filmmakers did “nothing to sketch in the social and economic pressures that lead kids to…gangs.” Benson’s sentiment was echoed in a 22 Apr 1988 Reader review that criticized the film’s failure to address political, economic, and social issues surrounding gangs, as well as its uninformed characterizations of minorities, especially black people, stating, “Colors becomes not a story about gangs, but a story about how white people should deal with gangs and, by extension, poor minorities.”
       In its opening weekend, the film took in $4.8 million in box-office receipts, playing on 422 screens, resulting in a per screen average of $11,249, as stated in the 19 Apr 1988 LAT article. Jim Edwards, president of Edwards Theaters, Orange County’s largest movie theater chain, stated that Colors had the top opening weekend in the area so far that year, taking in an average of over $20,000 per screen. On 26 Apr 1988, LAHExam stated that Orion had earned $8.5 million to the time. A 20 Apr 1988 HR article announced that the release would expand to a total of more than 1,200 screens on 29 Apr 1988, and stated that Colors had made a “boxoffice killing” the previous weekend. After nine weeks of release, the film had taken in $41.7 million in box-office receipts, according to a 17 Jun 1988 Tampa Bay Times report.
       A home video version was scheduled to be released 17 Nov 1988, with several minutes of added footage and a new running time of 127 minutes, as reported by Var on 28 Sep 1988.