HBO's New Boxing Series Shooting at Gleason's Gym

Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn will be closed both Monday and Tuesday for the shooting of Spike Lee’s new boxing series “Da Brick,” loosely based on the youth of former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson.

“Entourage” creator Doug Ellin is onboard as a producer and John Ridley will write the series, which is set in Newark and will explore what it means to be a young black man in post-racial America. Of course Tyson hails from the Brooklyn and trained upstate, but those are minor quibbles. According to Deadline, the idea came from Tyson himself during a visit to the Entourage set, where he suggested to Ellin that his backstory in boxing may merit the same treatment as the early Hollywood career of Entourage producer and inspiration Mark Wahlberg.

Any project with both Lee and HBO involved is worth keeping an eye on, especially if it promises to do for boxing what Entourage did for being a celebrity hanger-on: make it seem glamorous rather than seedy and self-serving. Plus boxing basically invented the idea of a celeb supporting a posse of his boys from back home, so Ellin seems like a natural to convey its appeal to a broader audience.