Ang Lee’s next film is a Bruce Lee biopic starring his own son, Mason, in the lead role. I’m hearing the script is done and a production start in early 2025 is being eyed for the film.
Lee, who hopped onboard the project in November 2022, is going to direct the biopic. Talented screenwriter Dan Futterman (“Capote,” “Foxcatcher”) will pen the script. There have been a few delays on this one, mostly having to do with last year’s strikes, but things seem to finally be coming together.
The biopic, titled “Bruce Lee,” is set up at Sony’s 3000 Pictures. That’s the same place that, in 2013, Lee began development on a film dramatizing Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali's heavyweight title fight, known as the Thrilla in Manila. I’m told that film, titled “Thrilla in Manilla,” has been put “on hold” for the time being.
However, don’t expect Lee to shoot “Bruce Lee” in 3D, much like he has done with his last three films. Earlier in the year, the filmmaker admitted that not only is it “too hard” to film in 3D, but that the end results just aren’t worth the hassle (“3D is bad”).
If you lived through ‘90s, and aughts cinema, Lee could do no wrong. He’s was one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of that decade. Lee has been stuck in a rut of big studio machinery of late, with “Taking Woodstock,” “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,” and “Gemini Man.”
Almost every movie Lee made in the ‘90s and ‘00s turned into cinematic bliss: “Eat Drink, Man Woman,” “The Wedding Banquet,” “Sense and Sensibility,” “The Ice Strom,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” “Brokeback Mountain,” “Lust Caution” and “Life of Pi.”
I’m even a fan of his unfairly maligned 2003 “Hulk,” which compared to today’s superhero movies, now looks like a masterpiece. It’s one of the most artful comic book movies ever made.