So superhuman were the accomplishments of martial-arts legend Bruce Lee that people are still trying to understand the source of his power. Now, there's a movie producer willing to dig deep into the enigma. Let's hear from Lawrence Grey about his upcoming biopic.
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story? |
A new Bruce Lee movie is in the works.
"Someone had brought the idea to me, because we had a relationship with the estate -- Bruce Lee, with Shannon Lee, Bruce's daughter, started talking about it,"
"And, initially, I didn't want to do it, because the movies that had been made about Bruce Lee, in my mind, hadn't really lived up to the man, lived up to the legend," said Grey.
Grey said the one exception is director Rob Cohen's 1993 box-office hit "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story", a movie he admires -- but it's not the one he wants to make.
"I thought Rob Cohen did a brilliant job of that, so I didn't know where you went after. But then I sat and thought about it, and said, 'Well, no one's done it to be an awards film,"
"No one's done the story that's examined his philosophy and the inner character, not the internal conflicts. But what was this guy really struggling with?' So, I talked to Shannon about it, and she shared an enthusiasm for doing an approach like that," said Grey.
Grey said he's already got a director in place for the film, which should be released in 2017, but he would not name him.
Grey did, however, serve up the Lee biopic's mission.
"This is one of the great geniuses in human history. So, I don't think there is a film that has really captured the mind of Bruce Lee. And so that's our goal," said Grey.
Bruce Lee died at only 32 years of age, a month before release of his first Hollywood-produced Chinese martial-arts movie, "Enter the Dragon," in 1973. Today, the film is regarded as one of the all-time classics.