and the real way to have them be heard is to be holding the reins of power. - $2.4 million. that's great box office for a wednesday, and that's what opening day crowds paid out to see "malcolm x." - it's hard to miss the phenomenon called spike lee. spike lee is a black man who has reached the top of white culture, and he's done it his way. - "malcolm x" is a really impressive achievement in terms of not being one of these small, independent, emergent new voices connected to hip-hop, but instead a big budget, 3-hour, 20-minute epic about a very important african-american figure. - take three, a mark. - i asked him if he was ever worried that the movie would not appeal to a broad audience. - if it's good enough, people are gonna come. but the minute black artists start thinking about crossover, they start diluting the work, watering it down, and the work suffers. - when we look at the john singletons and the spikes,