A New Official Bruce Lee Biopic Is in the Works

Few pop culture icons carry the weight of martial artist Bruce Lee, who arrived on the Hollywood scene with a bang, blew the minds of an entire generation, and then tragically died at the painfully young age of 32. His life story is a fascinating one that is just as cinematic as any of his movies, so it shouldn’t be too surprising that new biopic telling his life story is in the works.

Lee’s life was previously brought to the screen in 1993’s Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, but this new film will be the first made with the full cooperation and involvement of Lee’s family. In fact, Shannon Lee (Bruce’s daughter) will produce the film with Lawrence Grey and Janet Yang through Bruce Lee Entertainment, a company with the goal of creating Bruce Lee-inspired films, TV shows, comic books, and video games. Shannon Lee says that their new movie will be the first to truly capture what her father was all about:

There have been projects out there involving my father, but they’ve lacked a complete understanding of his philosophies and artistry. They haven’t captured the essence of his beliefs in martial arts or storytelling. The only way to get audiences to understand the depth and uniqueness of my father is to generate our own material and find amazing, like-minded partners to work with.

This project is still in its nascent stages. At this point, there’s no writer, no director, and no star. This is literally just an announcement, a way of letting the whole world know that this project exists. It would be easy to make a Bruce Lee biopic that goes through the numbers and hits all of the expected beats, Walk Hard-style. And it would work! From his early career overseas to his Hollywood breakthrough as Kato in The Green Hornet to hard-hitting action masterpieces like Enter the Dragon, his is a life worth chronicling in detail. However, this is where we implore potential filmmakers to avoid trying to encapsulate an entire life in two hours. Do what the best biopics do: Pick the portion of his life that captures him best and put that onscreen.