Spike Lee Vows To Make 'Save Us, Joe Louis' Boxing Drama & Promised Screenwriter Budd Schulberg To Make It Before His Death

The annals of film history have a lot of unmade, lost, and forgotten projects. A veteran filmmaker like Spike Lee, naturally has lots of them (we recounted 10 of them in 2013). One of those projects is an unmade boxing movie called “Save Us, Joe Louis,” about the friendship and rivalry between boxing heavyweight champion Joe Louis, and German heavyweight boxing champion Max Schmeling. Two of their fights are legendary in boxing history, and there’s even an intensely-detailed Wikipedia page dedicated to these fights and the surrounding dramas. In 2011, Lee said that Arnold Schwarzenegger could have played Schmeling at the time, but also seemed resigned to the fact it was a film that was just never getting made.

Well, that’s maybe changing. In a semi-recent Director’s Cut DGA podcast with Lee and longtime collaborator John Turturro, Lee revealed that he made a vow and promise to screenwriter Budd Schulberg to make the film. Schulberg is known for the novels, “What Makes Sammy Run?,” “The Harder They Fall,” his Academy Award-winning screenplay for “On the Waterfront,” and the screenplay for “A Face in the Crowd.” Lee befriended Schulberg years ago, and they co-wrote “Save Us, Joe Louis” together.

Lee said Schulberg was, “One of the great writers of all time, a lot of people don’t know this, but he’s in the boxing hall of fame as a writer. “Bud [was] a boxing aficionado,” Lee explained. “We became very good friends, and we co-wrote a script called, ‘Save Us Joe Louis,’ about the friendship between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling, two heavyweight champions,”

“Bud was at both fights at Yankee Stadium,, and I really believe this—Bud died when he was 98 [and] what kept him going for the last few years of his life was the hope that we would get this film made,” Lee explained.

“He would call me periodically, ‘Spike, have you got the money yet?’ ‘Spike, have you got the money?,” he recalled. “He wasn’t bugging me; that was just his enthusiasm. He wanted to get this film made before he left us.”

Lee then made a declaration to Turturro: he will get “Save Us, Joe Louis” made one day. “I made a promise to Budd, and I’m going to keep that promise [and get it made]. It’s epic!”

Given his relationship with Netflix (they produced “Da 5 Bloods” and it’s looking to be a major Oscar contender later this year), and the glut of streaming options out there looking to make a splash by throwing a lot of money at a top-shelf filmmaker to get a passion project made, “Save Us, Joe Louis,” that once seemed like it was lost to history, still might get made one day. Fingers crossed.

And speaking of “Da 5 Bloods,” Lee revealed near the end of the podcast that like most filmmakers and collaborators, he did not know Chadwick Boseman was fighting cancer. He told the the story of seeing the film hundreds of times with his wife, but they rewatched it after Chadwick died and his entire outlook on the peformance changed. “It’s great, but looking at it now? It just takes it to another level because part of the film he’s playing a ghost anyway! First of all, I didn’t know he was sick. I didn’t know. I think he thought this was going to be his last film, but God gave him one more, ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.’ So he got another film in and god bless him.”

Listen to the entire podcast, nearly an epic 1.5 hours, below.