Why Steve McQueen Refused To Star In A Bruce Lee Movie
Steve McQueen received an offer to star in a Bruce Lee film, but turned it down. McQueen and Lee, who are both huge Hollywood icons, could have made a movie together in the late 1960s, but because of MQueen’s disinterest, it never happened and the project was eventually abandoned.
Though Bruce Lee had co-starred in The Green Hornet with Van Williams between 1966 and 1967, it took quite a while for him to become a household name. Lee didn’t get his big break until he was hired by Hong Kong studio Golden Harvest to make The Big Boss, which was released in 1971. So between The Green Hornet and The Big Boss, Lee was on the lookout for opportunities to become a star. Lee, who was unable to sell Warner Bros. on a pitch for a martial arts Western series, co-wrote a script with screenwriter Stirling Silliphant and Hollywood star James Coburn for a martial arts Western movie that spoke to the “great difference between Oriental and Western thinking.”
Titled The Silent Flute, Bruce Lee’s Western movie would've seen the actor playing multiple characters attempting to teach martial arts to the film’s white protagonist. Lee’s original intention was for this character to be played by Steve McQueen, whom Lee had befriended after giving him kung fu lessons. At this time, Lee had yet to make a name for himself, but McQueen already had with hits like The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, and The Sand Pebbles. According to McQueen biographer Matthew Polly, Lee reached out to McQueen about the role, but the actor wasn’t interested [via Closer Weekly]. But Lee didn't give up easily, and despite continually pushing McQueen on it, McQueen explained that he wasn’t going to carry Lee on his shoulders.
McQueen felt that Lee wanted to use his stardom to give himself a movie career. He told Lee that he wasn’t “in the business of making other people stars”. Though it’s true that Lee’s movie career likely would have gone quite differently if he made a movie with McQueen before The Big Boss, the actor's comments unsurprisingly infuriated Lee. With McQueen out of the picture, Lee turned to Coburn instead. But unfortunately, the two had difficulties working together. In the end, both Lee and Coburn moved on from The Silent Flute. Years after Lee’s death, it was finally brought to the big screen as Circle of Iron with David Carradine and Jeff Cooper.
As for Bruce Lee and Steve McQueen, their friendship survived, but something else was born out of their argument as a result. Lee’s ambitions to become a star reached new heights, as it was then that he became determined for his popularity to surpass McQueen’s. A rivalry was formed, and it helped to motivate Lee in a big way. Another McQueen biographer, Marshall Terrill, has credited the actor’s refusal to star in The Silent Flute for pushing Bruce Lee toward becoming such a huge star.