Spike Lee & Jordan Peele’s New Movie Tells The True Story Of A Black Man Who Joined The KKK
When it comes to films about modern race relations in America, there may be no greater filmmakers than Spike Lee and Jordan Peele.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lee and Peele are teaming up to create a joint film project titled Black Klansman. The film will be directed by Lee while Peele will produce, under his Blumhouse company.
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To some Heads, the film’s title may read as a striking resemblance of the hilarious skit about the blind African-American Ku Klux Klan leader “Clayton Bigsby” played by comedian Dave Chappelle on his iconic Comedy Central sketch show during the early 2000s. In contrast, Black Klansman is based on a true story about an African-American detective from Colorado named Ron Stallworth who infiltrated the KKK in 1978. Stallworth had communicated with Klan members via phone and handwritten letters. For in-person encounters, he worked with a white police officer who had attended their meetings under Stallworth’s code name during the undercover operation.
Stallworth’s character will be played by John David Washington, star of HBO’s Ballers, and the son of Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington. The film is based on the details written by Stallworth in his book of the same title, Black Klansman, released in 2014, about his experience during the undercover operation.
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Jordan Peele is best recognized as one-half of the Comedy Central sketch show duo Key & Peele and is the screenwriter/director of the 2016 thriller Get Out. The film was Peele’s directorial debut and set a record for surpassing $100 million at the box office for a directorial debut. Spike Lee is best known for his films about interracial and intra-racial strife including Do The Right Thing, School Daze, and the Academy Award-nominated film biopic Malcolm X.
Lee was recently on Questlove’s podcast Questlove Supreme in which he spoke about several of the films he directed in his career. It’s a two-part listen, with some interesting details about casting Rosie Perez and Halle Berry, as well as the 1977 New York City blackout.
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#BonusBeat: Spike Lee is currently working on a Netflix series adaptation of She’s Gotta Have It. The 10-episode run begins November 23. New Jack City screenwriter Barry Michael Cooper is one of the series producers:
This “sneak peak” released in July.