If there's one thing you can't accuse director Ang Lee of, it's repeating himself. Every film he's made so far has been completely different from what he's done before. He's done the martial-arts epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, cowboys-in-love Brokeback Mountain, he's done Life Of Pi and now his next film will focus on the world of boxing in the 1960's and 1970's.
What's more, he's hired Peter Morgan - writer of Frost / Nixon, The Damned United and more recently, Formula 1 drama Rush - to write the script. Morgan has said he'll focus on "how brutal the confrontations were between Ali and Frazier." He went on, saying that Lee is looking to use actual footage from these fights and incorporate whoever's cast as Muhummad Ali and Joe Frazier.
Ang Lee's a fantastic director and any subject he's taken on, whether it's 17th-century Chinese martial arts or knowing how to quit things, it's been both commercially and critically successful. Boxing films do quite well. You take a look at The Fighter or going back, Michael Mann's Ali or even the incredible documentary When We Were Kings and they're all considered modern classics.
This could be very interesting, we think. Ali and Frazier is a story that hasn't been told effectively and it could be fascinating to see what happens with using 3D, archival footage and all the wonders of CGI and putting Ang Lee over it all. He's got a record for taking new technology and using it more smartly than most.
