Jennifer Hudson & More Star in Spike Lee Musical Comedy CHIRAQ

YouTube comments on the trailer seems to suggest that ordinary Chicago residents aren't too happy with the film; "Spike Lee is on a few bull shit this ain't even the real Chicago the shit looks more like the show Empire fuck outta here", says one.

Amazon Studios and Roadside Attractions have released the first trailer for Spike Lee's Chi-Raq, which you can see below. "Welcome to Chi-Raq!" he declares. Whether the script was the final shooting version, Rhymefest did not know, but the trailer supported pretty much what he read in the script he received. Lee co-wrote "Chi-Raq" with Kansas filmmaker Kevin Willmott. Why do we need yet another story where a woman (or an entire city of women) uses sexual prowess to control men? The film is mostly based on the Greek comedy Lysistrata, in which Athenian women withhold sexual privileges from men to force them to negotiate an end to the Peloponnesian War. Let's face it, when was the last time you were excited about a Spike Lee movie? The music that comes from many of Chicago's most violent neighborhoods has been dismissed by many academics as merely symptomatic of-or by a few particularly out-of-touch commenters, contributing to-the continued danger.

"We couldn't have come up with a better film to launch our division in every which way". You missed the gems of his recent work because they were unnoticed by the mainstream (see: the rambling and theatrical horror remake Da Sweet Blood of Jesus) or consumed without credit where credit was due (the Michael Jackson doc Bad 25, the stage-to-screen doc Passing odd, and-seriously-NBA 2K16).

In a convo with the Chicago Sun-Times, he elaborated on his issues with the film's concept. Its cast includes Teyonah Parris, Nick Cannon, Jennifer Hudson, John Cusack, Angela Bassett and Wesley Snipes.