Spike Lee will bring the story of one of the nation's first African-Americans to earn PhD in theoretical physics to the big screen.

According to Variety, Lee will co-write and direct the flick Time Traveler, a feature adaptation of a memoir by the trailblazer Ronald Mallet.

It's a project close to Spike's heart. He acquired Time Traveler: A Scientist's Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality with his own cash and set up the project through his own Forty Acres & A Mule Filmworks imprint.

The book takes readers through Mallett's rise from poverty to a history-making career in academia and science. Since his father died when he was 10 years old, Mallett's life ambition had been to invent a time machine enabling him to go back and save his father.

Lee called Time Traveler a "fantastic story on many levels (and) also a father and son saga of loss and love."

The director recently wrapped Miracle at St. Anna, a World War II movie about the Army's 92nd Division of all-black buffalo soldiers who become trapped in Italy. It hits theaters in the Fall.