‘Luke’ in the works Despite delays, timing just right for ‘Pac’ film
LOS ANGELES, June 13, (Agencies): Demetrius Shipp Jr never acted before playing Tupac Shakur in “All Eyez on Me.” But his connections to the rapper, and to acting, go back to his childhood.
Shipp’s uncanny resemblance to Shakur inspired his friends to call him “Pac” in high school. And even before that, Shakur’s music was part of his life. Shipp’s dad is a music producer who worked on one of Shakur’s songs.
“My fondest memory of Tupac is my father producing ‘Toss It Up’ for him when I was 7 years old and hearing that,” Shipp said. “He produced that, and that was the biggest guy at the time. So I was like ‘Wow this is dope, my pops did this single.’ ...From then on it was like Tupac forever.”
“Toss It Up” was the first single released after Shakur was shot to death in Las Vegas in 1996.
Those connections didn’t exactly prepare Shipp to play Shakur in a biopic. But a fouryear delay between casting and production was enough time for the look-alike to really get camera-ready.
“I look at it now as like, even through 2011 back then... and all of these years, being able to see now that I wasn’t ready,” Shipp said. “It happened at the exact perfect time for me, just even with the alignment of the people that were involved.”
The delays — prompted by the departure of two potential directors and a legal battle with Shakur’s estate over his life rights — allowed Shipp to properly study acting, and he was unexpectedly reunited with a teacher from his youth.
“As a kid, I was going to her acting classes, not to act for myself but to support my friend,” he recalled. “And she was my acting coach all these year later for the Tupac movie... It feels like destiny.”
Shipp, 28, appears in nearly every frame of “All Eyez on Me,” which tracks Shakur’s life from his teens to his violent death in 1996, with nods to his activist upbringing by his Black Panther parents.
Producer L.T. Hutton, a former Death Row Records producer who worked with Shakur, said he needed to cast a lead actor audiences would believe as Tupac, and Shipp was the one.
“I knew from his background and upbringing that Demetrius had the makings of becoming Tupac all the way,” Hutton said. “If I’d cast any one of the actors Hollywood was pushing me to use, people would have spent the first hour of the movie wondering, ‘Why is this guy trying to be Tupac?’”
Shipp said he’s been inspired by the experience, and by Shakur’s indefatigable work ethic: He recorded hundreds of songs and made six movies before his death at age 25.
“His mindset was: Get the work done. Time doesn’t wait for no man. You need to be working, especially for the things that you want to obtain and accomplish,” Shipp said. “If you want it and you want to get it, then you’ve got to work hard for it, like Tupac was working hard for it.”
O’Shea Jackson Jr has been set to star in an untitled movie about the life of the late Major League Baseball pitcher Dock Ellis.
“Hacksaw Ridge” producer David Permut, Jeff Kwatinetz and Ice Cube are producing from a script by Joey Poach. Jackson is the son of Ice Cube and portrayed him in “Straight Outta Compton.”
Variety first reported in November that Permut had acquired Joey Poach’s spec script “Dock” through his Permut Presentations company and brought on board Dock Ellis’ son, Dock Ellis III, as a consultant.
Ellis played in the major leagues for 12 years, nine with the Pittsburgh Pirates, and was an outspoken advocate for African-American players, continuing Jackie Robinson’s fight for racial equality in Major League Baseball. He gained notoriety after he retired by disclosing that he had pitched a no-hitter in 1970 while high on LSD.
Ellis played on World Series champion teams in 1971 with the Pirates and in 1976 with the New York Yankees. He retired in 1979 and subsequently admitted that he had never pitched a game sober and ultimately sought treatment for his alcohol and drug addiction. He then dedicated the rest of his life to counseling those suffering from substance abuse problems specializing in counseling professional athletes before dying of a liver ailment in 2008 at the age of 63.
Lionsgate is working on 2 Live Crew biopic “The Book Of Luke,” based on leader Luther Campbell’s autobiography.
The project is set up with Temple Hill’s Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey as producers with John Fischer overseeing the project for Temple Hill. Mike Epps and Industry Entertainment are executive producing.
Craig A. Williams is writing the script, based on the Campbell’s “Book Of Luke: My Fight For Truth, Justice And Liberty City.” Campbell, who was born in Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood, joined the rap group 2 Live Crew in the 1980s. The group saw its greatest success with their 1989 album “As Nasty As They Wanna Be,” which was ruled obscene by a federal judge before a federal appeals court overturned that ruling.
Campbell became known as “The King of Dirty Rap.” He was sued by Acuff-Rose over a parody version of the Roy Orbison song “Oh Pretty Woman” for copyright infringement but the US Supreme Court ruled in Campbell’s favor in 1994, finding that the song’s use of sampling of music for a parody represented fair use.
Woody Allen’s next film will hit theaters this December, Variety has learned.
“Wonder Wheel,” a drama set in Coney Island during the 1950s, will debut in limited release on Dec. 1, 2017. That pits it against “The Disaster Artist,” a comedy with James Franco about the making of the cult film “The Room.” It’s actually a pretty open period on the release calendar. Disney will launch “Coco,” an animated movie, on the weekend before “Wonder Wheel” opens. The weekend after “Wonder Wheel” lands will see the release of Guillermo Del Toro’s fantasy drama “The Shape of Water,” but many films seem to be steering clear of December. That likely has a lot to do with “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” which hits theaters on Dec 15.