Spike Lee’s Inside Man was one of the finest movies of the great director’s career – and it was certainly not only the most commercial, but the most successful, grossing $175 million worldwide.
So, there’s been talk of a sequel to the playful heist thriller for a while now. And Lee himself has confirmed, during promotional duties at the Toronto Film Festival for his new movie, Miracle At St. Anna, that Inside Man 2 is moving ahead pretty fast.
There are no plot details yet, but Russell Gewirtz, writer of the original movie, has moved on, to be replaced in the writer’s chair by Terry George, director of Hotel Rwanda. And he’ll be working on a script that will see Denzel Washington’s sassy cop, Keith Frazier, lock horns once more with moralistic and fiendishly clever bank robber, Dalton Russell (Clive Owen). No word yet on whether Jodie Foster's "magnificent c**t", Madeleine White, will also return.
"I want the script to be even better than Russell's, and Russell wrote a really good script," says Lee. It's not known why Gewirtz left the project, but having also written the forthcoming De Niro/Pacino cop thriller, Righteous Kill, maybe he's focusing on other things.
Although there’s no timeframe yet, we’d imagine that this one could go before the cameras before the end of next year, all being well. And speaking of imagine, Brian Grazer will once again produce via his company, Imagine.
So, readers, looking forward to this? Or are you a little worried about the narrative hoops that George may have to make Frazier and Russell jump through in order to face each other again? Should the original – one of 2006’s nicest surprises – be left well alone? Over to you…