Lee and Kwame Kwei-Armah will write the movie musical, about the invention of the little blue pill, which will feature music by Stew Stewart and Heidi Rodewald.
Spike Lee has directed films about a Black detective’s quest to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan, a bombing of an Alabama church and the U.S. government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. But for his latest project, a movie musical that chronicles the invention of Viagra, the first drug approved by the F.D.A. to treat erectile dysfunction, he has opted for a song-and-dance approach. “I will be directing a dancin’, all singin’ musical,” he wrote in a statement announcing the project on Tuesday. The film will be based on a 2018 Esquire article that traced the discovery and marketing of the drug, Deadline first reported. Lee will write the script with the British playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah. The songwriters Stew Stewart and Heidi Rodewald, who created the Tony-winning musical “Passing Strange,” will compose the music. (Lee filmed that musical as a concert movie during its Broadway run in 2008.) “Overjoyed to be dancing with Brother Spike,” Kwei-Armah wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.
