After a period of downtime for Spike Lee, it looks like his career is coming back with more projects than you can shake a stick at. Along with two new films, one of which is an Oldboy remake, he also is involved with a drama Da Brick which is set up at HBO. That drama has now been picked up to pilot and has finally found a lead.
The story was developed by Entourage creator Doug Ellin and written by John Ridley. It will be executive produced by Spike Lee, who will also direct the pilot, and he will work alongside Mike Tyson who also has a producing role. The show will apparently be loosely based on Tyson’s life, set in Newark, New Jersey and trails the life of a young, black man who is a boxer. The show will take a deeper exploration of what it means to be a black youth in a post-racial America with a black President in Office.
Of course these are all things Spike Lee is very interested in. Those of you who follow his Twitter feed will know that he’s fairly passionate about these things and hopefully some of this passion will come through in the pilot. The pilot also has a star, Lee has also taken to Twitter recently to praise Attack the Block and its young star John Boyega. So in a way it was no surprise that Boyega has been announced as the young lead.
Boyega will play a young character called Donnie who is released from prison on his 18th birthday and starts a new life for himself in a more accepting world. After Attack the Block failed to set the box office alight in the US, it is good to see the talented people on that film getting recognized by big Hollywood people. Boyega was certainly the highlight of Joe Cornish‘s otherwise overrated film.
Work is now underway to find the rest of the cast, no word yet on when production will begin on the pilot for Da Brick but we’ll keep you updated when we hear more.
Source: Deadline
