Netflix releases trailer for Spike Lee war drama ‘Da 5 Bloods’

Netflix released its first trailer for the Spike Lee film “Da 5 Bloods” Monday morning, offering a glimpse at the highly anticipated R-rated release that follows a group of vets from the days of Vietnam through the Trump era.

The film, with homages, Lee says, to “Apocalypse Now” and “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” stars Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis and Isiah Whitlock Jr. as four African American veterans who return to the country in search of the remains of their fallen squad leader, played by Chadwick Boseman. Jonathan Majors also stars.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic led to shut-downs of theaters worldwide, the two-and-a-half-hour movie was set to premiere at Cannes Film Festival, which would have been underway this week — and where Lee would have been the festival’s first black jury president. Instead, the film will begin streaming on the site on June 12.

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Four African American veterans return to Vietnam decades after the war to find their squad leader’s remains — and a stash of buried gold. From Spike Lee.

In March, Lee’s 2000 film “Bamboozled” was added to the Criterion Collection and, despite its box office failure, is being reconsidered as a cult classic for its sharp look at racism. Lee has also been in the news this month for the short film he released as a tribute to New York and its front-line healthcare workers during the current pandemic, as well as for his appearances in “The Last Dance,” ESPN’s just-concluded docuseries on Michael Jordan. Lee’s commercials for Nike, starring Jordan and the director as his “She’s Gotta Have It” character Mars Blackmon with Jordan, helped establish the basketball icon as a pop culture phenomenon even before he won his first NBA championship.

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Spike Lee talks about Michael Jordan and the making of his Nike commercials with the basketball icon.