Spike Lee is going back to the well that is WWII? According to the Hollywood Reporter, Lee’s 40 Acres and a Mule production company have bought the rights to a true story thriller called, “Now the Hell Will Start,” about an African American G.I. who goes AWOL in the middle of Southeast Asia jungle during World War II and joins a native tribe of headhunters. The soldier, who was assigned to a segregated labor battalion, finally broke down, shot a white officer and then escaped into the jungle. The chase after him became the greatest manhunt conducted by the United States Army during World War II.
Damn, crazy story, but Lee doesn’t really have that much luck with race-related WII stories. Remember last year’s “Miracle At St. Anna”?
We all know how that turned out (an abysmal $9 million gross worldwide, from a $45 million dollar budget= one of the biggest bombs of the year). Now THR doesn’t say specifically if the project is for Lee to direct, but we can’t remember the last time 40 Acres and a Mule acquired the rights to a project for someone else to direct. Plus this has provocative, controversial Spike Lee written all over it. This actually sounds kind like a rather incredible movie. Sounds like a juicy role for an African-American actor (can we suggest Anthony Mackie?) Now if some studio actually decides to foot the bill…
PS, One potentially controversial project alive, one dead. Spike Lee told MTV that his planned L.A. Riots film project is dead for now. “We didn’t get the money that we needed to make the movie I wanted to make,” Lee said. “How can you scale back the LA riots?! That’s not the movie I want to make. The studio said, ‘Scale it back.’ What’s the point?”