Mere weeks before Tupac Shakur’s music rights are set to revert to his mother, Afeni Shakur, the studio behind the long-gestating Tupac biopic has found a new director.
Morgan Creek, the company behind, among others, The Good Shepherd and the Ace Ventura: Pet Detective franchise, must start production on the film before the end of the year in order to retain the rights. That puts their new pick, music video director Benny Boom, on a rather tight schedule.
Boom, whose roster of clients includes Nicki Minaj, 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg, Ja Rule, and Busta Rhymes, replaces Carl Franklin, the prolific television director who left the project when production company Emmett/Furla sued Morgan Creek for $10 million after the studio allegedly “breached a co-production agreement by selecting a lead actor and setting a budget and production schedule without Emmett/Furla’s approval,” writes The Hollywood Reporter.
If the project finally moves forward—and that’s a big if—Boom’s got quite the troubled production on his hands. Given the success of Straight Outta Compton, though, the time for a Tupac movie may finally be right.