Save Us, Joe Louis - Lee turns to boxing
Story by Jack Foley
SPIKE Lee has announced plans to start filming a boxing epic based on the legendary bouts between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling.
Entitled Save Us, Joe Louis, the film looks set to star Oscar nominee Terence Howard as Louis and X-Men star Hugh Jackman as Schleming.
The film has been a long-held ambition for Lee who confirmed that plans were being finalised for shooting to begin in late Autumn.
Speaking at a press conference for his current movie, the bank heist thriller Inside Man, Lee revealed: “We’ve been trying to make it for six years and we’re hoping to get it started late Fall.
“But every time this looked like it was going to happen we’d have a setback. The first was Ali because of the mentality of the studio. When Ali came out they said: “Boxing films don’t work.”
“Then it gained some momentum but when Cinderella Man came out, they said the same thing. It’s that type of mentality that keeps good films from being made.
“I’m not trying to be biased but Star Wars was turned down by every studio because of a film called Starman, starring Jeff Bridges. Joe Louis isn’t going to be Star Wars in any way, shape or form but that’s the mentality of the gate-keepers – the people that decide which films are getting made and which aren’t.”
Lee predicts that Save Us, Joe Louis will be bigger than Malcolm X and is culturally significant given the historic events surrounding the boxing match.
“Schmeling and Louis actually fought twice and the first time Goebbels and Hitler didn’t watch because at that time no one thought that Louis would ever lose and it would not look good for the Aryan race to be beat,” he explained.
“But after he knocked Joe Louis out in the first fight, then Schmeling became an instrument, a tool for propaganda and was used as an example of the superiority of the Germans.”
If filming begins in the autumn, as expected, expect Save Us, Joe Louis to be a real heavy-hitter for the future.
Spike Lee interview: Inside Man