Carl Franklin has stepped in as director of Morgan Creek’s long-gestating, untitled biopic about Tupac Shakur in the wake of the departure of John Singleton from the project.
Singleton posted a message on his Instagram account Tuesday, confirming he is no longer involved with the film. “The reason I am not making this picture is because the people involved aren’t really respectful of the legacy of Tupac Amaru Shakur,” Singleton wrote. He also added, “Tupac was much more than a hip hop artist … He was a black man guided by his passions … Of most importance was his love of black people and culture … Something the people involved in this movie know nothing about.”
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Singleton, who directed Shakur in his 1993 film Poetic Justice and became close to his family after the rapper’s death in 1996, said he still plans to pursue a Tupac Shakur project of his own.
Singleton became attached to the Morgan Creek project in 2014 and had intended to re-write, produce and direct it.
Franklin, who is repped by Paradigm and Anonymous Content and has directed such films as 1995’s Devil with the Blue Dress and 2003’s Out of Time, came on to the project several months ago and began the casting process this week.
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Written by Jeremy Haft and Ed Gonzalez, the film is being produced by James G. Robinson, David Robinson, L.T. Hutton, Randall Emmett and George Furla. Executive producers are Afeni Shakur, Tom Ortenberg and Peter Lawson.