Reports claim the screenplay is entitled, Live 2 Tell, and will go into production in early 2012.
Rights to Tupac Shakur’s only screenplay, which the late hip-hop artist wrote while in jail on weapons charges, has been acquired by Preston Holmes and Ivan Juzang‘s NStar Studios. Shingle plans to put “Live 2 Tell” into production early next year. Holmes, who collaborated with Shakur’s mother to make documentary “Tupac: Resurrection,” will produce “Live” along with “Hustle and Flow” producer Dwight Williams. Shakur’s mother, Afeni Shakur, will exec produce. NStar pegs the budget at $11 million and hopes to start production in the first quarter of 2012. (Variety)
Studio heads Preston Holmes and Ivan Juzang have also weighed inon acquiring the project.
“This kid was a genius, and the net of it is, he was from this community, he knew the struggles these young people were dealing with,” Juzang, whose urban advertising and market research firm MEE (Motivational Educational Entertainment) Prods. [and] will work on Live, told Variety. “And he’s able to talk to young people in 2011, 2012, the same way he was able to talk to young people in 1995.” Holmes, who first became interested in Live while working as a production prexy at Polygram Pictures-based Def Pictures, first reached out to Shakur about the script while the rapper was still serving his sentence at Clinton. “We think that the name we need is the name we have, which is Tupac Shakur,” Holmes said. (Variety)
According to reports, the project was written by Pac while serving out a mid-1990’s jail sentence.
Dead screenwriters: suddenly so hot right now! (Though they takeforever to turn in their rewrites.) Last year, we had the film The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, based on a newly discovered screenplay by Tennessee Williams, and soon we may haveLive 2 Tell, which Tupac Shakur wrote while serving an eleven-month jail sentence in 1995. Variety reports that production on the drama — which chronicles a teenage drug lord trying to leave his life of crime behind — will begin early next year after almost a decade of false starts. Still, if producers don’t want to blow Tupac’s cover, they should probably cut those scenes where the drug lord plays Wii while watching the royal wedding and checking his iPhone. (New York Mag)
Outside of the screenplay, Pac’s biopic is reportedly headed into production.
Casting will begin next week on Morgan Creek’s Tupac
Shakur biopic, “Tupac” — and they’re looking for you to star! Starting Monday, March 21, Morgan Creek and Skee.TV will be acceptingaudition videos online for the lead role of Shakur via the InSearchOfTupac.comwebsite. Over the course of the month long open call, anyone interested can post a 5 minute video. (Too Fab)
Check out some past Tupac Shakur footage down below:
