Fox Searchlight Greenlights Biggie Film
Fox Searchlight has “green-lighted” a biopic of hip-hip artist Notorious B.I.G. Sean Combs is on board to Executive Produce and George Tillman Jr. has been selected to direct the film from a script by Cheo Hodari Coker and Reggie Rock Bythewood based on Coker’s biography “Unbelievable: The Life, Death and Afterlife of the Notorious B.I.G.”
Fox Searchlight, which picked up the rights to the project in 1995, commenced a nationwide casting call Sunday, with anyone resembling the slain rapper encouraged to submit a tape whether an actor or not. The famed hip-hop artist, also known as Biggie Smalls but whose real name was Christopher Wallace, was a major figure in the East Coast hip-hop scene before being shot to death in Los Angeles. Combs signed Wallace in 1992 when working at Uptown Records. When Combs was fired shortly thereafter, Wallace followed him to his new label, Bad Boy Records.
The according to Fox, the film will focus on the Wallace not seen in public life. Producing are Wallace’s mother, Voletta Wallace, and former music managers Wayne Barrow and Mark Pitts, as well as Robert Teitel. Film project has been in the works for seven years.
