T.I. In Talks to Join Eddie Murphy and Tituss Burges in Netflix's DOLEMITE IS MY NAME
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hip-hop artist turned actor T.I. (aka Clifford Harris), who next appears in MARVEL'S ANT-MAN and the Wasp, is in talks to join Eddie Murphy in Dolemite Is My Name!, Netflix's biopic of envelope-pushing comedian and film producer Rudy Ray Moore.
The film revolves around the life of Rudy Ray Moore, best known for financing and starring in Dolemite, which appeared in 1975 and has been described as "one of the great blaxploitation movies" of the 1970s. The character was "the ultimate ghetto hero: a bad dude, profane, skilled at kung-fu, DRESSED TO KILL and hell-bent on protecting the community from evil menaces. He was a pimp with a kung-fu-fighting clique of prostitutes and he was known for his sexual prowess." The film was successful and was followed by The Human Tornado, The Monkey Hustle, and Petey Wheatstraw: The Devil's Son-in-Law. Moore continued to release albums that appealed to his enduring fanbase through the 1970s and 1980s, but little of his work reached the mainstream white audience. His "rapid-fire rhyming salaciousness exceeded the wildest excesses" of Foxx and Pryor, and his highly explicit style kept him off television and major films.
Netflix will launch the movie in 2019. Michael Beugg is exec producing. Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winner Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, whose credits range from Ed Wood toAmerican Crime Story: The People vs O.J. Simpson, wrote the script.
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