Spike Lee Shares the Screenplay for His Dream Jackie Robinson Biopic

“I Dug Deep Into Da 40 Acres Vault And Pulled Out This Script From One Of My EPIC Dream (Never Got Made) Projects,” said filmmaker Spike Lee in an Instagram post Sunday as he shared the 1996 script for Jackie Robinson.

Lee has long-admired the former Brooklyn Dodgers player—in Do the Right Thing, Mookie (played by Lee himself) dons a Robinson jersey. As Lee shared the script for his pet project about the iconic baseball player, he also shared a video explaining his rationale for sharing the script now.

“We’ve all had a lot of time to think about stuff, our life, what happened, what didn’t happen,” Lee said. “And I began to think about one of my dream projects. I wrote a script for Jackie Robinson. I wanted Denzel to play Jackie, but Denzel said he was too old. And I pulled this script out of the vault. And so, I’m gonna share this script with you. And also — don’t worry about if you don’t like baseball, sports. This is a great American story. Never got made, but I wanna share this script with you… It’s the fifth draft, 1996 … Hope you enjoy it. If you don’t, that’s alright, too.

Maybe Jackie Robinson can still be made if Lee casts Denzel Washington’s son (and BlacKkKlansman star) John David Washington as Jackie. But for now, we’ll settle for a script by one of the best.

Watch Lee’s full Instagram video below, and read the script for Jackie Robinson here.