Spike Lee looked back on the tolls of trying to complete his 1992 biographical epic Malcolm X, revealing that the period was the most depressed he has ever been.
A completion bond company assumed control of the production from Warner Bros., the studio behind the feature starring Denzel Washington in the title role, after production costs ballooned as much as $5 million over budget. Lee famously completed the feature after independent fundraising efforts, securing donations from notable Black figures like Oprah Winfrey, Prince, Janet Jackson, and Tracy Chapman.
“That movie almost killed me when Warner Bros. let the bond company take over the film in postproduction and shut it down,” the filmmaker said of that period in recent conversation with The Hollywood Reporter. “That’s probably the most I’ve been depressed in my life with the exception of my mother dying. Half my salary went into the movie. I was broke.”
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Spike Lee attends the 2025 Entertainment Community Fund Gala in New York
But he was determined to finish the project. “The most important book I ever read was The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley in junior high school,” Lee said. “I read that book every year. Once I got the gig to do that film, I said, ‘I have to be a student of Malcolm.’ I just kept thinking about him. And it hit me like a ton of bricks: I know some African Americans who’ve got some money. I made a list and I got the money.”
“Every time I was going to somebody, I was asking for more money,” Lee added. “The last two people on my list were Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. And knowing how competitive those two brothers are, I let it slip to my Brooklyn brother, Michael Jordan, how much Magic gave. Michael Jordan said, ‘OK, I got you.’ Boom . . . we had a press conference in Harlem to let the world know these prominent African Americans gave gifts, no strings attached, so I could finish this film. The next day, Warner Bros. took the film back from the bond company and started to finance it again.”
The film, which traces the early life and career of the Black Nationalist leader, grossed about $48 million worldwide against a ~$33 million budget and received two nominations at the 1993 Academy Award, including a best actor nod for Washington.
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Lee reteams with frequent collaborator Washington for a fifth feature, Highest 2 Lowest, in theaters Aug. 22. A reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 Japanese film High and Low, the neo-noir stars Washington as a music mogul who becomes the target of a ransom plot in modern-day New York. Jeffrey Wright, Ilfenesh Hadera, and A$AP Rocky round out the cast.
Previous Lee-Washington collaborations include Mo’ Better Blues, He Got Game, and Inside Man. I didn’t know it was 18 years since Inside Man,” Lee told THR of the reunion. “Time flies. I was shocked. We had to have a reacquaintance, but we were still in step.”
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