Jeffrey Wright Joins Denzel Washington in Spike Lee’s ‘High and Low’

Fresh off his Oscar nomination for best actor, Jeffrey Wright has set his next film.

Apple Original Films and A24 announced Tuesday that Wright is joining Denzel Washington in director Spike Lee’s next film, High and Low. A24 will give the film a theatrical release before its global launch of Apple TV+. A release date has yet be announced.

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The thriller, which starts production this month, is the English-language reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa’s crime thriller High and Low. The 1963 Japanese movie told of a shoe executive that was in the middle of a complex corporate takeover when his plans are derailed by the accidental kidnapping and ransom of his chauffeur’s son, instead of his own son.

The movie adaption was developed and produced by A24, Escape Artists and Mandalay Pictures, and written by Alan Fox and Lee.

High and Low marks the second collaboration between Apple Original Films and Washington following the acclaimed film The Tragedy of Macbeth, also from A24, and for which Washington earned his his 10th best actor Oscar nomination.

It’s also the fifth collaboration between Lee and Washington, who last worked together on their 2006 critical and box office hit, Inside Man. Their other movies include Mo’ Better Blues, Malcolm X and He Got Game.

The high-profile cast of High and Low also includes Ilfenesh Hadera.

Wright’s performance as “Thelonius ‘Monk’ Ellison in” Amazon MGM Studios’ satirical dramedy American Fiction — which was also nominated for best picture and won director Cord Jefferson an Oscar for best adapted screenplay — earned Wright numerous best actor nominations on the awards circuit. It also landed him an Independent Spirit Award.

He is repped CAA, Strategic PR and the law firm of Jackoway Austen Tyerman Wertheimer Mandelbaum Morris Bernstein Trattner & Klein.

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