Denzel Washington is reportedly raking in $35 million a film nowadays.
The Oscar-winning actor is claimed to have earned that to star in Netflix’s upcoming crime thriller Right here I Come, Puck stories. Based on “three sources acquainted” with the deal, the paycheck matches what Washington was paid by Apple and A24 for Spike Lee’s new neo-noir movie, Highest 2 Lowest.
Impressed by Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 crime thriller Excessive and Low—whom Spike Lee honors with a solo credit score on the movie’s finish—Highest 2 Lowest reimagines the crime traditional about an abduction and ransom scheme. Washington stars as David King, a legendary music mogul recognized for having the “greatest ears within the enterprise,” who finds himself on the middle of a ransom plot that forces a harrowing ethical determination.
The movie marks a reunion between longtime collaborators and buddies. Lee and Washington have delivered classics like Malcolm X and Mo’ Higher Blues. With Highest 2 Lowest, it’s Lee’s first function shot in his native New York Metropolis since 2012’s Purple Hook Summer season. The return has “reignited his love for town as a visible playground in ways in which vibrate all through” the movie, based on movie critic David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter.
The movie—that includes Jeffrey Wright, A,$AP Rocky, and Ilfenesh Hadera—premiered on the Cannes Movie Pageant on Could 19 and earned a six-minute standing ovation. In the course of the occasion, Lee paid tribute to Washington for making the journey to France regardless of his tight schedule: he’s at present starring in Broadway’s record-breaking manufacturing of Othello.
Spike Lee pays tribute to Denzel Washington after the ‘Highest 2 Lowest’ premiere in #Cannes2025.
Washington needed to fly again to NYC to renew performances of ‘Othello’ on Broadway earlier than the screening ended pic.twitter.com/F1tD2fqH46
— Deadline (@DEADLINE) Could 19, 2025
The movie has earned a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes to date, however the evaluations are glowing.
“Lee has made a movie that feels modest and grand directly, the form of film you’ll be able to see on a Saturday night time only for kicks and nonetheless be interested by the following day,” Stephanie Zacharek wrote for Time.
“Highest 2 Lowest isn’t only a welcome reunion between two of cinema’s greats after an extended break,” wrote Matt Neglia of Subsequent Finest Image “It’s a triumphant work from a filmmaker who has neatly up to date a narrative to debate related and private themes whereas by no means compromising his voice.”
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