Post by Marks - the Earth's Sun on Aug 20, 2005 21:02:07 GMT -5
Journalist hired to write script for biopic about slain rapper
MUSIC
Hollywood Reporter
Updated: 8:36 p.m. ET July 22, 2005
LOS ANGELES - The life of slain rapper Notorious B.I.G. is getting the big-screen treatment.
Fox Searchlight has hired journalist Cheo Hodari Coker, the last person to interview B.I.G. before his death, to write the script. Director Antoine Fuqua (”Training Day”) is in negotiations to take the helm.
Born Christopher Wallace, then taking the moniker Biggie Smalls because of his more than 6-foot, 400-pound frame before settling on alias Notorious B.I.G., the rapper went from a Brooklyn crack dealer to East Coast hip-hop sensation. He helped establish Sean “P. Diddy” Combs’ Bad Boy label as a hip-hop presence and aided artists like Lil’ Kim and wife Faith Evans.
B.I.G. was involved in a feud with West Coast rapper Tupac Shakur, who was gunned down in a Las Vegas drive-by in late 1996. In March 1997, B.I.G. was shot as he was leaving a party at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.
B.I.G.’s murder has never been solved. In 2002, Evans and Wallace filed a civil suit against the LAPD and the City of Los Angeles, alleging that police were involved. A mistrial was declared earlier this month, and a new trial is expected.
The film will be produced by B.I.G.’s mother, Voletta Wallace, and his former managers Wayne Barrow and Mark Pitts. Barrow said the trio had been trying to get a film off the ground for the last five years.
“People wanted to give us check and do a film that they wanted to do, but Searchlight gave us the opportunity to really be able to come in and tell the story the way it was supposed to be told,” Barrow said. “It’s not just a hip-hop film, it’s a film of life and a film of love. We didn’t want to sell our souls to the devil, so to speak, just to get a check. The story is too important, not just to us but to hip-hop.”
Barrow said he hoped to be in production early next year, and the most challenging aspect of the film will be casting.
“The most important element to casting B.I.G. is what we consider the swagger,” Barrow said. “They have to have the element of the man and be able to capture the essence of who he was and his maneuvering, his relishings of life. You can’t instill this in an individual, you just have to have it.”
Coker has written for Vibe, the Los Angeles Times and Premiere. He is the author of “Unbelievable: The Life, Death, and Afterlife of the Notorious B.I.G.” The biopic will not be based on the book, and Coker will work closely with the Wallace family to write the screenplay.
Coker also did a rewrite on a Bob Marley biopic at Warners and is working on an untitled thriller for Fuqua.
Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
I look forward to the completion of this project. Does anyone know what the status of the movie that Stallone was working on? the one about Tupac and Biggie?
MUSIC
Hollywood Reporter
Updated: 8:36 p.m. ET July 22, 2005
LOS ANGELES - The life of slain rapper Notorious B.I.G. is getting the big-screen treatment.
Fox Searchlight has hired journalist Cheo Hodari Coker, the last person to interview B.I.G. before his death, to write the script. Director Antoine Fuqua (”Training Day”) is in negotiations to take the helm.
Born Christopher Wallace, then taking the moniker Biggie Smalls because of his more than 6-foot, 400-pound frame before settling on alias Notorious B.I.G., the rapper went from a Brooklyn crack dealer to East Coast hip-hop sensation. He helped establish Sean “P. Diddy” Combs’ Bad Boy label as a hip-hop presence and aided artists like Lil’ Kim and wife Faith Evans.
B.I.G. was involved in a feud with West Coast rapper Tupac Shakur, who was gunned down in a Las Vegas drive-by in late 1996. In March 1997, B.I.G. was shot as he was leaving a party at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.
B.I.G.’s murder has never been solved. In 2002, Evans and Wallace filed a civil suit against the LAPD and the City of Los Angeles, alleging that police were involved. A mistrial was declared earlier this month, and a new trial is expected.
The film will be produced by B.I.G.’s mother, Voletta Wallace, and his former managers Wayne Barrow and Mark Pitts. Barrow said the trio had been trying to get a film off the ground for the last five years.
“People wanted to give us check and do a film that they wanted to do, but Searchlight gave us the opportunity to really be able to come in and tell the story the way it was supposed to be told,” Barrow said. “It’s not just a hip-hop film, it’s a film of life and a film of love. We didn’t want to sell our souls to the devil, so to speak, just to get a check. The story is too important, not just to us but to hip-hop.”
Barrow said he hoped to be in production early next year, and the most challenging aspect of the film will be casting.
“The most important element to casting B.I.G. is what we consider the swagger,” Barrow said. “They have to have the element of the man and be able to capture the essence of who he was and his maneuvering, his relishings of life. You can’t instill this in an individual, you just have to have it.”
Coker has written for Vibe, the Los Angeles Times and Premiere. He is the author of “Unbelievable: The Life, Death, and Afterlife of the Notorious B.I.G.” The biopic will not be based on the book, and Coker will work closely with the Wallace family to write the screenplay.
Coker also did a rewrite on a Bob Marley biopic at Warners and is working on an untitled thriller for Fuqua.
Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
I look forward to the completion of this project. Does anyone know what the status of the movie that Stallone was working on? the one about Tupac and Biggie?