Filmmaker Spike Lee is currently in negotiations to create a remake of the 1935 folk opera, Porgy and Bess.
According to EURweb, Lee has been attempting to revive the story for over a decade now. “I want to make it, but I’m in long discussions with both estates,” he said, referring to the the estates of the work’s composer George Gershwin, author Ira Gershwin and songwriter DuBose Heyward.
In 1959, a film version of the play was shot with Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge and Sammy Davis, Jr. However, the Gershwin estate was not pleased the final product and pulled the film from release.
The play, set place in the early 1920s, follows the life of Porgy, a disabled Black man living in South Carolia, as he attempts to rescue Bess from her violent lover.
Despite the setbacks, Lee says his project is “still in the works,” but “as a film not a play.”