Variety is reporting that Derek Luke has swooped in and snatched up the role once occupied by Wesley Snipes in Spike Lee‘s upcoming WWII drama Miracle at St. Anna. Apparently fighting federal tax-fraud charges isn’t as easy as it might have been expected for Wesley. That can’t be a fun position to be in since Snipes has had a hard enough time finding any kind of major role and once he does he is in for quite the battle.
Nevertheless, Luke will probably serve as a better fit anyway as shooting is underway in Italy on the film in which he joins John Turturro, James Gandolfini, Michael Ealy, Omar Benson and Tory Kittles.
Luke will play one of four members of the U.S. Army’s all-black 92nd Division who get separated from their squad behind enemy lines. The soldiers, bitter about racism and the feeling that their own government treats its enemy better than it does them, finds humanity in the small Tuscan village of St. Anna. Ironically enough Luke plays an Army Ranger in Afghanistan in Lions for Lambs, which hits theaters this November.
James McBride wrote the script and Touchstone is currently in talks to distribute the pic Stateside.
