Spike Lee’s Newest Film “Highest 2 Lowest,” Starring Denzel Washington and ASAP Rocky, Slated for Spring/Summer 2025 Release
The latest upcoming project from Spike Lee is now in its final stages of production, and details surrounding the film are slowly coming to light. Denzel Washington has been attached as the film’s lead since it was first announced, but Lee recently revealed that the “main role” of “Highest 2 Lowest” belongs to none other than multi-hyphenate rapper-producer-actor, ASAP Rocky.
“Highest 2 Lowest” will mark Spike Lee’s 25th feature film, and his fifth collaboration with Denzel. Lee has said that the film is “a reinterpretation – not a remake” of the 1963 Japanese crime thriller directed by Akira Kurosawa called “High and Low,” and will follow the story of a music magnate and record label owner (Washington) who built his success by “having the best ears in the business.” Lee has been a longtime admirer of Kurosawa’s work, and has even said that the idea for his 1986 movie “She’s Gotta Have It” came to him after he saw Kurosawa’s “Rashomon” while at NYU.
“High and Low,” the Kurosawa film that inspired Lee’s reimagining, is about a powerful executive of a shoe company who becomes the victim of an extortion attempt when his chauffeur’s son is mistakenly kidnapped in place of his own son, which forces him into a moral and financial crisis. Details surrounding the plot of Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest” are still unclear, but it’s expected that Denzel’s character will face a similar situation, as a music mogul being wrongfully extorted by an elusive mastermind – which may be where ASAP Rocky comes in.
In an interview at the 2024 Red Sea International Film Festival, Spike Lee revealed that not only will ASAP Rocky appear in the film, but will have the ‘main role’ as a character named Yung Felon. Lee refused to elaborate further, aside from promising that “people will see when it comes out, its dynamite.” While Rocky is most widely known for his music, he is no stranger to the acting world and has appeared in several prominent Hollywood films in recent years including “Dope” and “Zoolander 2.” But if he does have the ‘main role’ in “Highest 2 Lowest,” like Lee says, then it is likely to become his most notable big-screen appearance to date.
Alongside ASAP Rocky and Denzel Washington, “Highest 2 Lowest” will also feature performances by Jeffrey Wright, Ilfenesh Hadera, Dean Winters and Ice Spice in her acting debut. This will be the first project that Lee and Washington have worked on together in over 18 years, since their last collaboration in 2006, “Inside Man.”
