Spike Lee May Be ‘Spinning Gold’ With Justin Timberlake In Neil Bogart Biopic

You gotta hand it to Spike Lee, he’s keeping us on our toes. Never one to take the easy road or obvious path, the filmmaker has been bobbing and weaving with a diverse slate of projects, going from Michael Jackson documentary “Bad 25,” to little indie “Red Hook Summer,” with a trio of wildly different upcoming projects including the “Oldboy” remake, stage show adaptation “Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth” and his crowdsourced “Da Blood Of Jesus.” So what direction is he going next?

Well, he’s being sought to helm “Spinning Gold,” that music biopic of record producer Neil Bogart you already forgot about that has Justin Timberlake attached to star. The project has been brewing in the background for a while, with the actor/singer signing up all the way back in 2011. Written by Tim Bogart (yes, Neil’s son) the film will tell the story of his father’s rags to riches tale as a Jewish kid from Brooklyn who founded Casablanca Records and found fortune releasing records by KISS, Donna Summer and Parliament. Among his many accomplishments, Bogart helped usher in the use of the 12″ record as a singles format, and worked with a vast array of talent including Curtis Mayfield, Bill Withers, Gladys Knight and The Village People.

The project is headed to AFM where it will hopefully spur the interest of buyers, but until then, Lee is busy promoting “Oldboy” and getting ready to shoot “Da Blood Of Jesus.” And while details on that project remain under wrap, Lee recently teased, “What I can tell you is this. I have never made a film like this and it excites me very much. I’m doing a semi-genre film about ADDICTION. These people are ADDICTED to BLOOD. Yet however they are not VAMPIRES. It’s going to be SEXY, HUMOROUS and BLOODY. To me that’s a unique combination.”

And to borrow a sports metaphor from the basketball, we’re eager to see Lee drive to the hoop. [THR]