peace? peace

Spike Lee’s Next Joint Is a Hip-Hop Romeo and Juliet

The Oscar-winning filmmaker is tackling Prince of Cats, an ‘80s-set, hip-hop version of Shakespeare’s classic story, starring Lakeith Stanfield.
spike lee on a balcony in cannes
Spike Lee, photographed during the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. “I’m not like most filmmakers,” he says, “and the films I make aren’t like most films.”Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Spike Lee is heading back home. The Oscar-winning filmmaker, who picked up his first Academy Award earlier this year for best adapted screenplay for BlacKkKlansman, has lined up a project that seems all but made for him, and returns him to the milieu that defined his career with 1989’s Do the Right Thing. Per Deadline, the director has signed on to helm an adaptation of Prince of Cats, a hip-hop version of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet set in 1980s-era New York.

The story, based on Ron Wimberly’s graphic novel, shifts the narrative to Tybalt’s perspective, following Juliet’s furious cousin as he sword-fights his sworn enemies, the Montagues. It would be illegal for Lee to consider not making this movie, no?

There were rumblings in 2018 that Legendary was putting together an adaptation of Prince of Cats as a star vehicle for none other than Lakeith Stanfield, a perfect bit of casting. A script was penned by former editor in chief of the Source Selwyn Seyfu Hinds (The Twilight Zone). Per Deadline, the script for Lee’s adaptation will be cowritten by Hinds, Lee, and Wimberly. Reps for the actor tell Vanity Fair that Stanfield is still attached.

Regardless, it’ll be fun to see Lee tackle the Shakespearean classic with a contemporary twist. The story, referenced time and time again, hasn’t had a big juicy revamp since Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 love letter to the MTV crowd, starring a weeping Leonardo DiCaprio in a big Hawaiian shirt and Claire Danes in a pair of angel wings. Tybalt was played to perfection by an iconically coiffed, gun-toting John Leguizamo (who previously starred in Lee’s film Summer of Sam). Peace? Peace. He hates the word!

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