“The Piano Lesson” may be the third August Wilson play to be filmed, but it’s the first as a Washington family affair.

Malcolm Washington, 33, makes his writing-directing feature film debut while his older brother John David, 40, plays Boy Willie Charles and their father Denzel produced.

A horror movie with a haunted upright piano and a house with a ghost, “Piano Lesson” is set in 1936 Pittsburgh’s Hill District. As the Great Depression grinds on, the Charles family argues whether to sell or keep the intricately carved upright piano, a part of their family since pre-Civil War slavery.

“There are directors and there are filmmakers. Malcolm,” Denzel declared, “is a filmmaker.”

August Wilson wrote a 10-play cycle, one for each decade, all set in Pittsburgh, called, naturally enough, The Pittsburgh Cycle.  Denzel starred in and directed Wilson’s biggest hit, the Oscar-winning 2016 “Fences.” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” followed in 2020, winning Oscars for its Makeup and Hairstyling and Costumes.

With “Piano,” streaming on Netflix Friday, Malcolm has gone in a new direction.

“The biggest approach was to reinterpret it for a new medium. Visualizing or imagining the characters’ dreams, their wants,” he said sitting next to his dad in a virtual press conference this week. “Asking, ‘How can we go to the world around them and present that to audiences?’

“We wanted to tell this ghost story that’s actually about Black American history, in the guise of this ghost story. It was more a reimagining of these things.

“There’s a lot that’s new: The beginning and the ending is new. For me it was having confidence. We revere August Wilson” – who was 60 when he died in 2005 – “but you have to build on the legacy he left.

“We had to bring ourselves to it and push beyond the walls of the theater and change the story and reach new generations and ultimately Mr. Wilson’s work.”

“We wanted,” added Todd Black, Denzel’s producing partner, “to always have the right captain. We wanted a younger director and a visionary and talking to Malcolm it was clear his vision was very cool, very cinematic.

“Theater,” he added, “offers a small opportunity and not everyone gets to see August Wilson’s work onstage.”

“Film,” Denzel noted, “lives forever.”

So will Wilson.

“Thanks to Malcolm,” Black concluded, “we can now be brave and reach for a bigger vision. Moving forward I feel so empowered from what he has done for ‘Piano Lesson’ that we can really go for the next seven.”

“I say this all the time,” added John David, who first played Boy Willie in the 2022 Broadway revival, “August’s writing has multiple things at play at the same time. And what’s great is everything is in the dialogue.”

“The Piano Lesson” streams on Netflix Nov. 22

Malcolm Washington, director/co-screenwriter of the film “The Piano Lesson,” poses for a portrait during the Toronto International Film Festival in September. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)