Save Us, Joe Louis | Spike Lee

[Cremildo]

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!” [+]