Spike Lee Confirms A$AP Rocky Has the ‘Main Role’ in His ‘Highest 2 Lowest’ Film

Looks like A$AP Rocky will be returning to the silver screen. Spike Lee said the rapper will have the “main role” in his upcoming Highest 2 Lowest film in an interview with Deadline on Monday (Dec. 9).

“The main role … is A$AP Rocky,” he said during the interview at the 2024 Red Sea International Film Festival, declining to share any more details about the rapper’s involvement in the new project. “People will see when it comes out,” he added. “It’s dynamite.”

Rocky will also star alongside Ice Spice, who will be making her acting debut in the film, as well as Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright and Ilfenesh Hadera. The Harlem MC (real name Rakim Mayers) made his acting debut in 2015’s Dope and has since starred in a handful of films, such as 2016’s Zoolander 2 and 2018’s Monster.

Highest 2 Lowest is “not a remake” but a “reinterpretation” of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 crime thriller, High and Low. “In Kurosawa’s film, Toshiro Mifune is a shoemaker. In our film, Denzel Washington is a music mogul with his own label and his reputation as the best ears in the business. So, this is the fifth film with the dynamic duo,” Lee said. This will be the fifth film Lee and Washington have worked on together, following 1990’s Mo’ Better Blues, 1992’s Malcolm X, 1998’s He Got Game and 2006’s Inside Man. 

Apple Original Films and A24 are partnering on Highest 2 Lowest, with A24 releasing the film theatrically before it streams globally on AppleTV+.