At some point in every director’s career, Hollywood makes you film a war movie. Honestly, it’s in the contract directors sign to gain entrance into the Hollywood fold. Next in line for his war opus is Spike Lee, who will direct a film set in Italy during World War II and based on “Miracle at St. Anna,” by James McBride, reports Variety.

Of course, this is Spike Lee we’re talking about, so the true conflict will truly be about race, as McBride’s novel is about black American soldiers fighting the German army in the mountains of Tuscany. The four members of the U.S. Army’s 92nd Division of all-black soldiers were trapped in a Tuscan village, while they struggled with incompetent commanders, Nazis and (above all) race.

"I met a black veteran who fought at Iwo Jima, and he told me how disappointed he was that there was not even one Afro-American (soldier) in Clint Eastwood's two films," Lee told the Italo newspaper.

Joking aside, Lee is the most accomplished director who deals with race. His Do the Right Thing covers race relations like no other film, but his M.O. is beyond tired at this point. Let’s hope that Lee can summon late-1980s magic when he sits upon the director’s chair once again.