Alex Cross author James Patterson turned down seven figures from Hollywood to whitewash his titular detective character.
The first Alex Cross novel, Along Came a Spider, was published in 1993. The series of books, which are written by Patterson, follows the Black protagonist as he solves crimes and addresses threats in Washington, D.C.
Amazon Prime Video has just premiered its brand-new show centered around the character, Cross, which stars Aldis Hodge.
Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Patterson revealed that, shortly after Along Came a Spider was published, he received a seven-figure offer from Hollywood to make media based on his Alex Cross novels; however, Patterson rejected the offer since they wanted to whitewash the character.
What did James Patterson say about rejecting Hollywood’s Alex Cross offer?
“Here’s an interesting thing about the Hollywood Cross stuff,” Patterson said. “When I wrote the first Alex Cross book, I didn’t have a lot of money and Hollywood came calling — knock, knock, knock, knock, knock. They offered seven figures, and I did not have a lot of money. They said, ‘We just want one change; we want Alex to be a white guy.’ And I said, ‘F— you.’ It was painful, but I did it. So we didn’t sell it right away. But a few years later, Paramount came, so we did a couple of movies with Morgan. One of the pieces here is David Ellison with Skydance. David’s been involved early, and then Amazon got involved, which was great, and I met Ben [Watkins] along the way, which was really terrific, and then obviously, Aldis came in a little later.”
Morgan Freeman previously played Alex Cross in two movies: 1997’s Kiss the Girls, which was directed by Gary Fleder, and 2001’s Along Came a Spider, directed by Lee Tamahori. Tyler Perry then portrayed the detective in a 2012 film titled Alex Cross, directed by Rob Cohen. There were initially plans for a sequel to Cohen’s movie, though they were canceled after Alex Cross underperformed at the box office.
Cross Season 1 is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
