Spike Lee and Denzel Washington to team up for Akira Kurosawa adaptation ‘High and Low’
Spike Lee and Denzel Washington are teaming up for their fifth film together, High and Low. The movie is a collaboration with Apple Original Films and A24.
The thriller will commence production in March and is an English-language reinterpretation of influential auteur Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 crime thriller of the same name. Starring Toshiro Mifune, the classic Japanese film was based on Ed McBain’s novel King’s Ransom, which follows the descent of a businessman who pays a ransom to the kidnappers of his child.
Produced by A24, Escape Artists and Mandalay Pictures, the script of High and Low was written by Alan Fox with Lee. It will mark Washington’s second collaboration with Apple Original Films following Joel Coen’s 2021 adaptation of The Tragedy of Macbeth.
Todd Black, of The Equalizer franchise and Emancipation, will produce the movie for Escape Artists, as will Jason Michael Berman for Mandalay Pictures. As well as directing, Lee will serve as executive producer through his 40 Acres And A Mule Filmworks.
Lee and Washington have previously collaborated on Mo’ Better Blues, Malcolm X, He Got Game and Inside Man. Furthermore, Washington and Black are no strangers, with him appearing in Fences, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and, of course, the star of The Equalizer films, which recently released its third instalment.
Lee and Washington’s first film together was 2006’s crime thriller Inside Man, which also starred Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Willem Dafoe and Christopher Plummer.
Meanwhile, Washington will also be coming together once again to work with Antoine Fuqua on an as-yet-untitled project.
The official logline for the movie says it is “based on real-life warrior Hannibal, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest military commanders in history. The film covers the pivotal battles he led against the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War.”
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