It’s been a long time since we’ve had a Spike Lee feature film. His last effort was 2008’s WWII drama “Miracle At St. Anna” and since then, he’s had his head down in a couple of documentary projects with “Kobe Doin’ Work” about (of course) Kobe Bryant and earlier this year, he headed to New Orleans and Haiti to film a followup to his celebrated documentary “When The Levees Broke.” In addition, he also filmed a stage production of the musical “Passing Strange.”
Well, it looks like Lee is getting ready to get back into the world of feature film as Deadline reports that he is set to direct the thriller “Nagasaki Deadline.” Nope, it’s not another WWII film, instead it’s a story about “a troubled FBI agent and his desperate race to thwart two terrorist attacks planned to unfold on American soil. The fed goes beyond obvious suspects to focus on theories that the crime is tied to historical events, as he races against the clock.” Eeesh. We were with it until it started going in to conspiracy theory territory. So is this like “National Treasure” meets “Knowing” meets “Inside Man”? Let’s hope it’s a little more grounded than that.
The film was originally set up with Martin Campell to direct but he left the project to do “Green Lantern” instead. The script is by David and Peter Griffiths (“Collateral Damage,” “The Hunted”) and was given a rewrite by William Broyles (“Jarhead,” “Flags Of Our Fathers”). The Griffithses are apparently back and will give the script another polish. No word who may star in the picture but we presume Lee will seek out his usual roster of players.
But we’re wondering, what happened to “Brooklyn Loves MJ”? Reported earlier this year, that film was supposedly set to be Lee’s next project (and allegedly had a huge cast including Samuel L. Jackson, John Turturro, Julianne Moore, Rosie Perez, Anthony Mackie and Kerry Washington), however, we would imagine squaring things with Jackson’s estate and lining up clearances for songs probably costs more time and money than any studio might be willing to spend right now. That said, we do hope it comes back onto Lee’s radar soon. Lee also has Tracy Morgan’s stand up film somewhere in development as well. And oh yeah, in case you were wondering, “Inside Man 2” is not happening anymore and really, that’s fine by us. The original is great piece of work that doesn’t really necessitate a sequel, and we’re glad to see Lee moving onto other material.