No one is ready for this upcoming Spike Lee joint, especially with it being a reunion between Lee and Denzel Washington, as news has broken that Lee is turning to the work of legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa as he adapts the 1963 film High and Low.
Apple Original Films and A24 are partnering on Spike Lee’s High and Low, which will be released theatrically by A24 before a global launch on AppleTV+. Alan Fox and Lee will write the script. Todd Black will produce for Escape Artists and Jason Michael Berman for Mandalay Pictures. Lee will also serve as executive producer through his 40 Acres And A Mule Filmworks.
Kurosawa’s High and Low starred Toshiro Mifune and was based on the Ed McBain novel King’s Ransom. The film follows a board member of a Japanese company who is forced to make a decision between using a vast amount of wealth to gain executive control and helping his employee by lending him the money to free his child from kidnappers.
The 1963 film is relatively iconic, though it doesn’t have the same reputation as Kurosawa’s Rashomon or Seven Samurai. But other legends have sung its praises, with Martin Scorsese including it on his list of “39 Essential Foreign Films for a Young Filmmaker.”
With this project, we see Spike Lee and Denzel Washington team together for the first time since 2006. They previously collaborated on Mo’ Better Blues, Malcolm X, He Got Game, and Inside Man.
