Los Angeles: Hollywood veterans Spike Lee and Denzel Washington are set to reunite for the English-language adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low.
Apple Original Films and A24 are collaborating for the project, which will start production in March, reported entertainment news outlet Variety.
Lee, who last worked with Washington for his 2006 movie Inside Man, will direct the new film from a script he penned with Alan Fox. The project is developed and produced by A24, Escape Artists and Mandalay Pictures.
Loosely based on the novel 'King's Ransom' by Ed McBain, Kurosawa’s High and Low was released in 1963. It featured Toshiro Mifune as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy man who puts himself into debt in a risky bid to enact a hostile takeover of a company and is later targeted by kidnappers.
The remake will be produced by Todd Black for Escape Artists and Jason Michael Berman for Mandalay Pictures.
Lee will serve as executive producer through his 40 Acres And A Mule Filmworks, alongside Mandalay’s Peter Guber, Juniper Productions’ Matthew Lindner, Chris Brigham, and Katia Washington.
Lee and Washington first worked together for 1990's Mo’ Better Blues and followed it up with Malcolm X (1992), He Got Game (1998) and Inside Man.