Video games are a big deal now—and have been for, like, 30 years—so it’s not too surprising to see actual Hollywood directors trying their hand at making games. Steven Spielberg made Boom Blox (a coming-of-age story about animals destroying towers made of blocks), Peter Jackson had his name all over the King Kong adaptation (a game that was probably shorter than the ice skating scene in the King Kong movie), and Guillermo del Toro was working on…well, let’s not talk about what Guillermo del Toro was working on. Now, famous basketball fan (and famous director) Spike Lee is going to give this whole video game thing a try by writing and directing the single-player campaign mode for 2K Games’ NBA 2K16.
But how did a famous guy like Spike Lee get involved with 2K Games in the first place? Well, this Associated Press write-up has all of the hot details, and it’s really a fascinating story. We’ll quote the whole thing below, just so you get all of the cool parts:
“They asked me,” Lee matter-of-factly noted during a recent phone interview from Chicago.
Wow. To be a fly on the wall of that phone interview from Chicago, huh? Crazy stuff.
Anyway, NBA 2K16’s story will reportedly be about the “trials and tribulations” of a basketball player named Frequency Vibrations “whose personal exploits off the court are just as chaotic as the game on it.” And just in case you’re worried that you misread the character’s name, we’ll repeat it right here: Frequency Vibrations. You play as a guy named Frequency Vibrations.
NBA 2K16 will slam dunk into stores on September 29, and you can see the game’s box art—which, yes, refers to it as “A Spike Lee Joint”—below.