*Warner Brothers shut down Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X” feature film over budget concerns and objections to filming the Mecca scenes in Saudi Arabia.
“Instead of shooting in Saudi Arabia, they said, why not shoot in the Jersey Shore in January?” Lee told Variety during the Red Sea Film Festival in Saudi Arabia. “I said, ‘Hell no!’ and Warner Brothers shut down the film.”
Lee decided to use his own money and reach out to wealthy Black individuals he knew, including Bill Cosby, Tracy Chapman, Janet Jackson, Prince, Magic Johnson, and Michael Jordan, to help fund the project.
“I promised each person, saying that I would go to my grave without saying how much each gift was,” Lee said.
“Everyone knew – myself, [then Warner Bros. heads] Bob Daly and Terry Semel, the bond company – everybody knew that the budget that had been approved was not enough to finish the film,” he added.
“It was enough to get us through production, but not to finish. Everybody knew it; it was not a surprise. […] Everybody knew the dreadful day would come when something bad was gonna happen. That day came when the bond company sent registered letters to everybody in post-production, including my great, great editor Barry Brown, saying their services were no longer needed,” the filmmaker continued, IndieWire reports.
“The plan was this: to shoot in the fall, then break for the holidays, then go to South Africa and Egypt. Right before the holidays, the bond company and Warner Bros. came with suggestions to cut the budget further. Instead of shooting in the Sahara Desert, they wanted to shoot on the Jersey shore in January, which was insane,” Lee added.
“We talked them out of that and went to Egypt, and then on the flight from Cairo to Johannesburg there was a bomb threat. It happened while we were in the air, so we had to land in Nairobi while they searched the plane for a bomb. There was a great welcoming party planned for us in Johannesburg, but we were delayed for four or five hours, so when we got there there were like two people left.”
The studio also “had a problem with the length” of the film.
“They didn’t think it needed to be three hours. But I knew when we were shooting that Oliver Stone had ‘JFK’ coming out, and I asked Bob, ‘How long is “JFK”?’ He said it was two hours. He didn’t know that Oliver and I were friends, so I called Oliver and asked him, ‘How long is “JFK”?’ He said, ‘Spike, it’s three hours, but don’t tell ‘em I said so!’” Lee explained.
“I felt that if that subject justified three hours, so did Malcolm X. I needed that time to show the evolution of the character and all the roles he played. When I refused to cut the movie down to two hours, Warner Bros. let the bond company take over the movie. […] Then on Malcolm X’s birthday we held a press conference announcing that all these great, great African-Americans had contributed to the film, and the next day Warner Bros. took the film back from the bond company and started to finance post-production.”
READ MORE FROM EURWEB.COM: Spike Lee Talks Collaboration with Denzel Washington and Upcoming Film ‘Highest 2 Lowest’
