A Hit Denzel Washington And Spike Lee Crime Movie Had A Sequel Without Them

If there's one thing you can expect from a Spike Lee Joint, it's the unexpected. He's brought his controversial and confrontational filmmaking style to every genre under the sun, from gritty dramas to satirical comedies, musicals and vampire flicks, and everything in between. So, when Lee brought his cops and robbers flick "Inside Man" to theaters in 2006, he did what was really unexpected: He made a straight down the middle Hollywood picture starring his trusty leading man Denzel Washington, albeit one with Lee's characteristic verve.

Taking inspiration from Sidney Lumet's classic crime thriller "Dog Day Afternoon," which the filmmaker has called one of his favorite movies of all time, Lee used the bank robbery film as an opportunity to assemble a microcosm of New York City's melting pot diversity among the bank's hostages. As the standoff drags on and on in "Inside Man," we get to see just how the people of the Big Apple get along (or don't) when put under pressure.

"Inside Man" was originally set up to be directed by Ron Howard before he decided to make the Russell Crowe period piece boxing film "Cinderella Man" instead. When Lee stepped in, he turned the film into his most crowd pleasing yarn yet. The result was the biggest box office hit of his long career, grossing about $186 million at the global box office.

So, you might be surprised to hear that there was indeed a sequel to "Inside Man" that you've definitely never heard of ... because Universal made it without Lee or Washington.

After "Inside Man" ran away with the box office, a sequel was announced in development with both the original film's writer Russell Gerwitz and director Spike Lee in negotiations to return. However, the first sign of trouble was when Gerwitz was replaced by writer Terry George in 2008, with Lee still hyping up the film by saying it would follow Clive Owen's bank robber Dalton Russell embarking on a new heist — one that would have him cross paths yet again with Denzel Washington's NYPD hostage negotiator Keith Frazier. Despite starting over from scratch, Lee was excited to get to work on the film with the principal cast returning, including Jodie Foster and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Then, three years later, the project was unceremoniously canceled. In an interview with Charlie Rose, Lee explained that despite the first movie's massive success, no financiers were willing to pony up the cash to bring the sequel to life.

But then, in 2019, some studio executive decided that a bad "Inside Man" sequel is better than no "Inside Man" sequel, and that's when "Inside Man: Most Wanted" suddenly popped onto Netflix. The direct-to-home-media approach is classic for low-budget sequels coasting on name recognition, and "Inside Man: Most Wanted" is no exception, offering only a slightly better version of the typical DTV trash.

Due to his tendency to take on controversial subject matter, Spike Lee has always thrived as an independent filmmaker. However, with the success of "Inside Man," he had hoped a sequel would be an easy project to get off the ground. But when said sequel failed to materialize, Lee was characteristically blunt when describing his frustrations with the process in the aforementioned Charlie Rose interview, noting that even though "Inside Man" was his most successful film, he was beset by the same problem he always faced: money.

"First of all, what in this world does not revolve around money? But money is a big part of film, unlike a lot of other art forms," Lee observed.

While certain "Inside Man" fans may've been unaware "Inside Man: Most Wanted" ever existed until now, they will certainly be aware of Lee and Denzel Washington's next collaboration, "Highest 2 Lowest." The remake of Akira Kurosawa's legendary "High & Low" is itself something of a spiritual sequel to "Inside Man," as it follows Washington in another cat and mouse game through the streets of New York City.

When Lee was asked about his thoughts towards "Inside Man: Most Wanted" (which bares only the slightest connection to his original film), the filmmaker could only jokingly roll his eyes at the movie. He then proceeded to complain about Universal not wanting to pay him and Washington what they were owed for the first film, instead resorting to making a cheap follow-up in South Africa.

While Lee is unhappy about how everything went down behind the scenes, he's ultimately happy that he didn't simply direct a "remake" of his own movie and instead got to bring "Highest 2 Lowest" to Cannes on Malcolm X's 100th birthday. As for Washington's thoughts, it appears he has yet to make any public comments about "Inside Man: Most Wanted," presumably because he has much better things to do with his time.