Oscar-winner Spike Lee’s Netflix movie Da 5 Bloods has added several more actors to the cast, including a pair of familiar faces from HBO’s classic drama The Wire. 30 years after his breakthrough film Do the Right Thing was shut out at the Oscars, Lee finally won a gold statue in competition for Best Adapted Screenplay for his incendiary 2018 film BlacKkKlansman. However, Lee’s movie ultimately lost Best Picture to Green Book, a development that didn’t sit well with Lee to say the least.
Now, Lee is putting his anger aside to work on BlacKkKlansman’s follow-up Da 5 Bloods, a drama about a group of Vietnam vets returning to the jungles to recover the remains of their lost squad leader. Lee penned the movie’s script with fellow BlacKkKlansman Oscar winner Kevin Willmott, based on an earlier script by Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo. Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman will head up the movie’s cast, and he’ll be joined by Delroy Lindo, Jonathan Majors, Jean Reno and BlacKkKlansman’s Paul Walter Hauser.
As reported by Collider, Lee’s Da 5 Bloods has now beefed up its cast even more. Highlighting the new additions are Clarke Peters and Isiah Whitlock Jr., both alums of HBO’s The Wire. They’ll be joined by Norm Lewis, Mélanie Thierry and Jasper Pääkkönen. Lewis, Peters and Whitlock will reportedly play three of the movie’s four leads, the group of friends who return to Vietnam years after their tours of duty, together with Lindo. The casting comes after Lee reportedly sought some bigger names including Samuel L. Jackson to fill the main roles. Additionally, it’s reported that Boseman will play the group’s dead squad leader in flashbacks.
Fans of The Wire will of course remember Whitlock as Senator Clay Davis, he of the unforgettable one-word catchphrase, and Peters as wise detective Lester Freamon. Both actors have in fact worked with Lee before, Whitlock in BlacKkKlansman and several others, and Peters in Red Hook Summer (which also starred Whitlock). The pair’s Da 5 Bloods co-star Lewis meanwhile is a veteran of Broadway, known for his baritone singing voice, who’s played in everything from The Phantom of the Opera to Les Misérables to Sweeney Todd. Other new cast member Thierry has mostly worked in European art films, but did appear in Terry Gilliam’s Zero Theorem as well as the Vin Diesel vehicle Babylon A.D. Pääkkönen worked for Lee in BlacKkKlansman, and has also appeared on the series Vikings.
Coming off his best-reviewed and highest-grossing film in years in BlacKkKlansman, all eyes will be on Lee as he heads to Netflix for his follow-up project. Da 5 Bloods already sounds like an intriguing departure for Lee, who as always remains very unpredictable, and the film is definitely putting together an amazing cast of experienced, acclaimed actors.
MORE: SPIKE LEE INTERVIEW: BLACKKKLANSMAN
Source: Collider
