By This morning, Spike Lee announced, via Twitter, that he had begun shooting his next film. There are no concrete details on the new film, other than it is not the rumored Oldboy remake he’s supposedly attached to, but several sites are carrying a rumor with a grain of truth and a grain of “Aw, HELL nah.”
Originating from an “inside source” tipping to Blackfilm.com, the rumor is that the film is called Red Hook Summer, and it’s about an Atlanta man that spends the summer in the heavily-gentrified Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn. That’s the part that makes sense. There’s an interesting story there, and enough modern racial issues to explore in that neighborhood that it seems like a natural fit. I’d say this part of the rumor is about 75% possible. The other part, though, seems complete bulls**t. This part says that, in the film, Lee will be returning in front of the camera to reprise his Do the Right Thing character Mookie, the young pizza delivery boy smack in the center of rising racial tensions in Bed-Stuy.
You can hit the jump for my thoughts on why this is just complete crap.
[Via Indie Wire, via Blackfilm, via Twitter]So Spike Lee may be a bit of a divisive filmmaker at times, but you have to wonder if he’s really the sort of guy that’d be interested in revisiting old characters or making sequels. My money says that he isn’t. Considering the fact as well that he’s stated, fairly definitively, that he does not like acting in his own movies, and only does so when the money’s not there for a different actor, it leads me to believe that a revisiting of Mookie’s situation in any substantive matter is just absolute bullshit.
That said, I could see him doing maybe one scene as Mookie, more as a cameo than anything else, considering the rumored film is set in Brooklyn. A quick glance of Mookie in modern New York could work, as long as he doesn’t become a larger part in the movie. Then again, it’s all speculation anyway. Do you guys think this has any accuracy, and if it does, what do you think about Spike Lee dipping back into the well of his absolute masterpiece?