Access Atlanta > Blog > Archives > 2008 > February > 29 > Entry
Spike Lee hangs out at Morehouse
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CREDIT: Rodney Ho
Acclaimed filmmaker Spike Lee stopped his alma mater Morehouse College Friday to support the new sports and journalism program he helped launch.
Lee said Nike donated $250,000 to the program and Lee, whose relationship with Nike goes back 22 years, was only happy to show up to thank the sneaker company. Lee himself donated $325,000 to seed the program. (Oddly, Nike never referenced giving $250,000 during the actual press conference, just a couple of small scholarships and internships at the local Nike office.)
He recounted how he was a huge Nike fan as a teenager where wearing “mo’s” or imitations were uncool. When he became a filmmaker and shot his breakout film “She’s Gotta Have It,” his character Mars Blackmon naturally wore a pair. A couple of ad men from the agency repping Nike saw the film and offered him the chance to direct and star in his own Nike ads with rising basketball star Michael Jordan. Lee said yes, of course. And he did dozens of ads over eight or nine years.
“It was mutually beneficial,” he said. He helped propel Nike to the next stratosphere as a brand and he himself was able to build his own career. He recently came out with a Spik’eze special Nike sneaker, which he called a “best of” past Air Jordan sneaker designs. “It’s flying off the shelves,” he said.
Lee is in postproduction on his next film, a World War II drama “Miracle at St. Anna” about black American soldiers fighting Germans in Italy starring John Turturro, James Gandolfini, Derek Luke, Michael Ealy and Laz Alonso. I noted that this sounds like a big budget film. “It looks like $100 million,” he said. It comes out in October.
During a talk on stage, he talked about how the movie landscape for African Americans has changed in 20 years. “There was only one black director when I got out of film school. Every time a black film came out, it was an event. Today, Tyler Perry has a film out every week.”
He also said Morehouse graduates too many business majors, too many people taking jobs simply for the money, not for the love of the job. “This is a liberal arts college,” he said. “We need to be more well rounded… I hope we start more entrepreneurial programs.” As for his sports journalism program, he hopes to generate more minority sports writers. “The press box is still a mostly segregated area while on the field, the brothers are running up and down the field.”
Lee spent moments of downtime at the event scanning his Blackberry for basketball game start times. (He left the presentation moments after he showed a trailer for his film, probably to see his beloved New York Knicks lose to the Hawks at Philips Arena. Sorry, Spike!)
If you have a tip, call 404-526-2749. Or fax 404-526-5509. Or e-mail: buzz@ajc.com.
Permalink | |
