Spike Lee is about to become real familiar with Chicago. Later this month he will be in town for this year's CIMMfest hosting "An Evening of Music, Film & Wine with Spike Lee." Not long after, he will begin to shoot his next feature film titled Chiraq.
As the title suggests, the film will deal with the ongoing problem of violence in the city. Lee is rumored to be wooing three people intimately familiar with the Chicago area to star in the film: Common, Jeremy Piven and Kanye West. Frequent collaborator Samuel L. Jackson is also a part of that conversation.
This is the first Chicago based film for Lee whose films are often set in Brooklyn, where he grew up, or the South, where he went to college.
Lee has signed on to do the film for Amazon Studios. This means that the film will be released exclusively on Amazon Instant Video. While Amazon Studios has made headway in the world of "television" (most notably Transparent, which won big at the Golden Globes earlier this year) this is a another big step for their film division.
No date has been set for the start of filming, but look out for Spike and company around town this summer.