The planned Bruce Lee biopic is tipped to be Ang Lee’s next film, a movie that stars Ang’s own son Mason Lee in the lead role.
Producer Lawrence Grey recently attended the Toronto Film Festival, where he spoke with Collider and confirmed all writing for the project was nearly completed before the strike. Asked if shooting will begin as soon as the strike ends, he said:
I believe that’s right. We still have a little bit of work to do on it, but we’ve climbed some mountains, and I think we’re pretty close.”
Dan Futterman (“Capote”) is penning the script for the film about the martial arts legend with the movie primarily taking place around the making of his iconic movie “Enter the Dragon”.
Lee would die less than a month after that movie’s release. Grey reveals that the film employs a non-narrative structure that will chart various threads throughout Bruce Lee’s life:
“What we realized was that the time period of Bruce’s life around the making of ‘Enter the Dragon’ was a moment where so many different thematic threads were connecting, and there was a confluence of an incredible amount of drama and conflict in his life.
So, we use that as sort of an axis around which to revolve his world. From there, I think the director would say it’s a kaleidoscopic journey through his life. It has a traditional non-narrative structure and is really thematically and experientially connected.”
Mason Lee has reportedly been training for five years for the role, with Grey saying that allowed them to turn a “very fine actor, but clearly the son of a very successful Hollywood director, to a stone-cold killer.”
He adds they did a worldwide casting search all across Asia and North America but ultimately “didn’t find anyone as compelling as Mason”. Grey’s newest film “Pain Hustlers” launched at TIFF the other day.
