“Wake Up. I been up since 430am. On the way to the set of THE NEW SPIKE LEE JOINT.Today is 1st Day of Shooting.Awwwwwwwwwwww Sheeeeeeeeeeeeet,” Spike Lee tweeted very, very early this morning. And while it was only last week that Lee talked with The Hollywood Reporter about his inability to get funding for a new feature film, it looks like very chatty director had something hidden up his sleeve.
Blackfilm (via Shadow And Act) has done the digging, revealing that Lee is reprising his role as Mookie from his seminal “Do The Right Thing” in a new film, “Red Hook Summer.” The plot will center on an adult from Atlanta who spends a summer in the titular hood, and it’s unknown if the film is a prequel, sequel or spinoff but the setting is interesting. If you recall, the northern neighborhood Bedford-Stuyvesant, loosely considered a kind of Harlem of Brooklyn if you will, served as the backdrop to “Do The Right Thing,” and we wonder what impact and perspective the switch to the southern, decidedly more gentrified Red Hook will mean. The area is off the beaten path from typical Brooklyn neighborhoods (there is no subway out there), however it is spitting distance the from old school Italian area of Carroll Gardens.
This project is coming completely out of nowhere, and we can only guess it’s a super low budget indie (or was developed completely in the dark). Of late, Lee has been linked to the gestating “Oldboy” remake as well as an HBO series “Da Brick” loosely based on the life of Mike Tyson. But to see him returning to a character and more intriguingly the kind of material that he made his name on for his next feature is tremendously exciting.
We’re sure this is just the tip of the iceberg of more info to come, but it’s been three long years since “Miracle At St. Anna” and while Lee has been keeping busy with various documentaries, we’re pretty stoked that his next feature is now rolling.
