Denzel Washington stars in Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest.” Apple/David Lee
We live in a day and age where the attention spans of viewing audiences are so short that we’ve grown accustomed to TV and movie trailers arriving less than a few months, and sometimes even mere weeks, before a project premieres.
This trend of last-minute, lackadaisical marketing has become the accepted norm. However, recently, there seem to be some glaring outliers, particularly when it comes to projects led by talent of color.
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The most notable among them is Spike Lee and Denzel Washington’s “Highest 2 Lowest,” a reimagined crime thriller produced by A24 and Apple, which has had a relatively hushed rollout since its glitzy May premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.
The movie debuted out of competition, though it was not included on the initial lineup announcement “because of some last-minute information we were waiting for,” according to festival chief Thierry Fremaux. Instead, Lee broke the news on Instagram.
Still, “Highest 2 Lowest” got the A-list treatment at Cannes, with Lee, Washington, his co-star A$AP Rocky and other celebs hitting the red carpet to kick off the summer film’s rollout. Washington was even presented with an honorary Palme d’Or by his longtime collaborator Lee before earning a five-and-a-half-minute standing ovation for their movie. From there, it seemed like the best was yet to come for one of the most anticipated films of the year.
However, after critics’ initial reviews and a handful of trade interviews with Lee came out, the buzz surrounding “Highest 2 Lowest” dried up a bit. That is, until the first full-length trailer finally arrived, albeit 11 days before the film’s scarcely-marketed Aug. 15 theatrical release (which only has a two-week window before streaming on Apple TV+).
The backlash was immediate on social media, as many took issue with the unusually late trailer release for such a high-profile, star-studded project:
One TikTok user said plainly, “We’re so used to studios not giving a damn when it comes to marketing Black projects, but to not market a Spike Lee and Denzel feature, their fifth one together? Ya’ll just love to piss me off.”
It’s fair to ask why a new flick from one of the most prolific American filmmakers isn’t getting its proper shine in the limelight, especially with a cast that includes towering figures like Washington and Jeffrey Wright.
Yes, there’s been a push of TV and junket interviews amid release week, but the effort feels more last-minute than anything. And why, if Lee and Washington’s latest reunion (their fifth in nearly 20 years) has been teased since early last year?
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You would think such an event would get the red carpet rolled out, or at least a better marketing campaign than what we’ve seen thus far. If a two-part adaptation of a Broadway musical and a doll movie can exhaust millions of ad dollars to guarantee a wider audience, why couldn’t the same be done for “Highest 2 Lowest”?
Unless that’s to say the rules are different for projects that aren’t aimed at lining Hollywood’s pockets.
In that case, it seems to be a trend among a few smaller releases this summer, like Disney+’s “Ironheart” series, which limped toward a two-week premiere after years of delays, and the animated “Black Panther” prequel, “Eyes of Wakanda,” which was pushed up nearly a month ahead of schedule.
It can’t be a coincidence that these projects and others like them suffered from the same marketing treatment, or lack thereof. It doesn’t help that another Apple title, “F1,” achieved unprecedented success at the box office this summer, setting the expectation that, perhaps, upcoming releases would get a bigger push. Guess that’s not so true of “Highest 2 Lowest.”
Whose fault that is is unclear, but what is clear is that audiences seem to be still clamoring for the Spike Lee Joint, even if the Hollywood machine acts like it doesn’t believe in it.
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