It turns out that filmmaker Spike Lee will not be making Hollywood magic in DUMBO after all.
One week after The Brooklyn Paper reported that the beloved “Malcolm X” director would move his famed “40 Acres and a Mule” film company to 55 Washington Street, Lee revealed that only his big-bucks advertising wing, Spike DDB, would move to the former warehouse building at the corner of Washington and Front streets.
Nonetheless, the mere presence of Lee represents a victory for the borough of his youth.
Earlier this year, Lee said that high rents had forced him out of his main office space at 124 DeKalb Ave. in Fort Greene, where his film company had been for 22 years, and into a smaller space he already owned around the corner on South Elliott Place.
“Got priced out, the rent raise was insane,” Lee told The Brooklyn Paper in April.
The director, who gave Brooklyn the starring role in his signature films “Do the Right Thing,” “Crooklyn” and “Jungle Fever,” affirmed that he still had a working and personal relationship with the borough in the April interview — though he now lives in Manhattan.
The building where he will now ply his very-much-for-profit trade is one of DUMBO’s best addresses (the office of The Brooklyn Paper is also in the building). Workers are just finishing renovating a sunlit-filled, spacious corner area in the building’s sixth floor.
