Spike Lee will direct a film version of David Bryne’s Broadway show “David Byrne’s American Utopia,” with primary financing provided by media company Participant with co-financing from Warner Music Group and River Road Entertainment, Participant announced Friday.
To be produced by RadicalMedia, David Byrne’s Todomundo and Spike Lee’s Forty Acres and a Mule Filmworks production companies, the film will be executive produced by Byrne, Lee and Participant’s Jeff Skoll, David Linde, and Diane Weyermann.
Warner Music Group’s David Bither, Charlie Cohen, and Kurt Deutsch, Bill Pohlad of River Road, and RadicalMedia’s Jon Kamen, Dave Sirulnick and Meredith Bennett will also executive produce along with Kristin Caskey, Mike Isaacson and Patrick Catullo, who produced the Broadway show.
“Pinch me. This couldn’t have worked out better for this project. Spike Lee directing and Participant producing — two socially engaged teams, well, three if you count us in the band, coming together in what I feel will be something moving, important, and unlike anything anyone has seen before,” Byrne said in a statement.
“David Byrne’s American Utopia” opened October 2019 and will run through February 16, 2020, at the Hudson Theatre. The film will be released in 2020. The show features the former Talking Heads leader singer and Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe winner along with 11 artists from around the world performing songs from his 2018 album of the same name, as well as Talking Heads-era songs and his solo career.
Lee’s next project is “Da 5 Bloods,” starring Chadwick Boseman, Paul Walter Hauser and Giancarlo Esposito.