Spike Lee’s Malcolm X Was Decades In The Making

After the Baldwin screenplay was more or less buried, other screenwriters would be hired to adapt X’s and Haley’s book, including author and screenwriter Calder Willingham, who worked on the screenplays for “Paths of Glory,” “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” “Spartacus,” and “The Graduate,” which was nominated for an Academy Award. While Willingham had a respectable Hollywood career, his version of “Malcolm X” never saw the light of day. The same happened for a version that was penned by David Mamet, screenwriting firebrand and self-professed a-hole. Mamet’s version can be found online, if you know where to look. There is also a screenplay by Pulitzer-winning playwright Charles Fuller (“A Soldier’s Play”) somewhere out there. 

Director Sidney Lumet was once attached to a version of “Malcolm X” which was to feature Richard Pryor as X and Eddie Murphy as Alex Haley. That film was, it appears, to be bookended by interview scenes about the writing of the “Autobiography.” While Pryor and Murphy were still attached, director Norman Jewison (“In the Heat of the Night”) took over production from Lumet. It was Jewison who brought Denzel Washington in to play the title role, as the two of them had previously worked together on the 1984 Best Picture nominee “A Soldier’s Story” (incidentally, an adaptation of the above-mentioned Charles Fuller play). This was 1990.

It was looking like the Jewison/Washington film was finally advancing in production when Lee caught wind of the project. Making a biography of Malcolm X had long been a dream of Lee’s, and he petitioned the studio to be brought on as director. There was already a protest at the time to remove Jewison from the project anyway, as many felt it improper that a white director should make a biography of Malcolm X. Jewison eventually also came around to that mindset and stepped away from the production, allowing Lee to step in. Lee kept Washington in the lead role, feeling he was perfect. Lee and Washington had previously worked together on “Mo’ Better Blues.”

Lee retrieved the James Baldwin/Arnold Perl screenplay from the back burner, where it had been sitting for over 20 years. He revised the screenplay and re-wrote portions of it himself. Because of the revisions, the Baldwin estate (Baldwin passed away in 1987) asked that his name be removed from “Malcolm X,” leaving Perl and Lee as the credited screenwriters.