Media mogul Shannon Lee has been pursuing a biopic about her late father, actor and martial arts sensation Bruce Lee for years but now it looks like we have a solid footing over at Sony’s 3000 Pictures. What’s more is that celebrated Life Of Pi, Hulk and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon director Ang Lee is on deck to direct the film with none other than his son, Mason Lee (The Hangover II, Who Killed Cock Robin?) attached to play the part of the screen legend.
The film had been in the works as of 2015 for Bruce Lee’s daughter who launched Bruce Lee Enterprises a year prior. One project would have seen the then-titled “Little Dragon” with Shekaur Kapur at the helm as of its announcement back in 2017 which unfortunately never came to pass, while other screen incarnations of her father would materialize through George Nolfi’s Birth Of The Dragon via actor Philip Ng, Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood a la Mike Moh. Actor Danny Chan would take on the role for two installments of Wilson Yip’s biopictoral Ip Man franchise starring Donnie Yen in 2015 and 2019.
According to a Deadline exclusive from Mike Fleming Jr. on Wednesday, the young film star whose credits also include Cathy Yan’s Dead Pigs and Soi Cheang’s latest brutal crime thriller, Limbo, has been training for the role in the last three years all during lockdown all while his film auteur father quietly developed the pic. He will star from the latest updated script by Dan Futterman (Capote, Foxcatcher).
“Accepted as neither fully American nor fully Chinese, Bruce Lee was a bridge between East and West who introduced Chinese Kung Fu to the world, a scientist of combat and an iconic performing artist who revolutionized both the martial arts and action cinema,” Ang Lee told Deadline. “I feel compelled to tell the story of this brilliant, unique human being who yearned for belonging, possessed tremendous power in a 135-pound-frame, and who, through tireless hard work, made impossible dreams into reality.”
Lawrence Grey, who has been on board the project for the better part of seven years per trade reports, will join the director as well as BLE’s founder in producing the pic alongside Ben Everard and Brian Bell. Elizabeth Gabler and Marisa Paiva are overseeing the project for 3000 Pictures.
“Bruce Lee is a longtime passion project for Ang and a deeply emotional story depicting the triumphs and conflicts of one of the foremost real-life action heroes of our time,” Gabler said. “All of us at Sony and 3000 Pictures are proud to help Ang and his filmmaking team create what we believe will be an extraordinary theatrical event.”
Things have been especially busy on recent memory for Bruce Lee Enterprises in the world of television with founder Lee overseeing the latest continuation of HBO Max series Warrior which recently wrapped its production on Season 3 for an expected 2023 premiere.
Read more at Deadline.
Lead pic: Criterion