Jonathan Majors is in the midst of a serious breakout. Hot off the heels of the villain role in Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania and the historic opening weekend for Creed III – $58.7 million, the best ever opening for a sports film – he’s already set his next movie: Amazon drama Da Understudy. And even better news – Spike Lee is in talks to direct.
The film tells the story of life imitating art when the understudy of a Broadway production finds a role he’s willing to kill for. Tom Hamada, Zach Stauss, and Tyler Cole wrote the screenplay, based on an original story by Cole and developed in-house by Westbrook Studios. Amazon landed the script on spec in a competitive situation.
Lee is reportedly in early discussions about directing the film, which would reunite him with Majors after they collaborated on Lee’s similarly titled last film, Da 5 Bloods, which was made for Amazon rival Netflix.
Even with a fairly barebones (but fascinating premise), Majors potentially being directed by Lee should be enough to get fans excited.
Majors has been on a steady rise since his critically acclaimed performance in 2019’s The Last Black Man In San Francisco. He’s since followed that up with lauded work in HBO’s Lovecraft Country, Netflix western The Harder They Fall, and war movie Devotion.
And earlier this year, he made a splash at Sundance with his performance as an amateur bodybuilder in Magazine Dreams. Fox Searchlight landed the rights to the film, which is expected to be released later this year. So Majors is having a pretty spectacular 2023.
Majors is producing Da Understudy under his Tall Street Productions banner, and he also has two more projects in the pipeline there too. One is the film adaptation of the Walter Mosley novel The Man In My Basement, in which he will star opposite Willem Dafoe. The other is 48 Hours In Vegas, where he’ll play eccentric NBA bigman Dennis Rodman.
So despite the success he’s already had, it looks like Majors’ ascent is just beginning. Hopefully Lee’s involvement with Da Understudy will be confirmed in due time, and a production date can be set.
#Peace.Love.DaUnderstudy
