Spike Lee excited to direct new Viagra musical

Spike Lee is set to direct a feature musical about the origin and development of Pfizer’s erectile dysfunction pill, Viagra.

The musical with be co-written by Lee and British playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah, and follow the creation of Pfizer’s pre-Covid universally famous impotence drug Viagra.

It’s a great story,” Lee told Deadline. “I’ve been wanting to do a musical for a long time, I just didn’t have the idea, with the exception of making my second film ‘School Daze’ into a Broadway musical. So, when the script was brought to my attention, it was the right script at the right time."

"I mean, I know I’ve had musical elements—there’s a great musicality—in my films. I’m talking about a straight-up all-singing all-dancing musical. God willing, that’s what this next film is going to be.”

Lee also touched on the debate around streaming services, saying, “Streaming has opened up a whole different avenue for young filmmakers.”

“I would just like to say that there is still independent cinema,” he added. “So independent cinema is alive. I’m not going to deny that getting the money, especially, for first-time filmmakers, is hard. That’s always going to be hard. But I think there are many more opportunities for young filmmakers than when I was in film school.”

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Songs of Stew Stewart and Heidi Rodewald, who created the Tony-winning Passing Strange, will be featured in Lee’s viagra musical.

Based on an Esquire article by David Kushner, 'All Rise: The Untold Story of The Guys Who Launched Viagra', the musical will tell the story of the drug’s early discovery as a heart medication, the unforeseen side effects of which later helped people with erectile dysfunction.

The director has released two films in 2020, the critically acclaimed Da 5 Bloods starring Chadwick Boseman and a concert film David Byrne’s American Utopia.