Oscar-Nominated Team Sign On for Upcoming Tupac Film

The fascinating, tumultuous life of slain Hip-Hop legend Tupac Shakur will receive big screen treatment from the Oscar-winning writing team of Stephen J. Rivele and Chris Wilkinson.

The pair received an Oscar-nomination for their work on the screenplay to the 1995 film Nixon, losing out to The Usual Suspects. In addition, the duo also wrote the screenplay for Will Smith’s 2001 biopic Ali.

After digging deep in Shakur’s history, Rivele characterizes the controversial emcee as a multi-faceted artist who created personas to due to the pressures and expectations of the Hip-Hop industry.

“It became clear that he was essentially a 19th century Romantic poet who found himself in the 21st century,”  explained Rivele toVulture, also adding he knew nothing about Shakur before beginning his research. “This is the story of an artist whose character is at odds with his medium He was a really sensitive, very romantic, talented young poet who also could sing, dance, and act. But the realities [of the hip-hop record business] were that he had to create this persona of the gangster.”

The 25-year-old Tupac Shakur was murdered in a drive-by shooting on the Las Vegas strip in September 1996. Despite the brazen, public execution of one of the music industry’s biggest stars, the killing remains unsolved nearly 14 years later.

There has been several documentaries on his life, but  possibility for a movie opened in 2007 when his mother Afeni Shakur sold the film rights. 

In the years following his death, Shakur’s legacy has grown to saintly proportions in Hip-Hop culture. However, Rivele feels it is important to note his emotional instability and  philosophical contradictions in giving a complete picture of the man and artist. The story will use the last day of Shakur’s life as a centerpiece, and review the last four years of his life (1992-1996) through flashbacks.

“He was obviously very angry, and had been subjected to a great deal of violence at home, in the streets and in prison,”  Rivele concedes. “But he was just beginning to shed that anger and look for a purer voice…He was in the process of changing himself, and entering a new phase of his life — essentially a Romantic vision — and had set up a new label, and a new production company to create it.”

Shakur’s death has spawned many theories, ranging from the obvious (a gang-related shooting) to the conspiratorial (a COINTELPRO approved assassination). Rivele doesn’t believe the murder was due to Shakur’s altercation earlier that evening with Crip member Orlando Anderson. Instead, the writer subscribes to the theory that it was Shakur’s own people who arranged his murder after becoming aware of his plans to leave Death Row Records

“He saw the contradiction between the musical persona of ‘Thug Life,’ and his essential nature as a gentle, sensitive person,” he says. “And that was partly responsible for his murder: He was not a gangster, but the people around him were. They saw he was going to leave, that they were going to lose him, and so I think they decided to kill him.”

The film will be directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Brooklyn’s Finest). A targeted release date has not been disclosed.

At press time, Shakur is expectedt to be played by a unknown actor.