Steve McQueen—director of Shame and 12 Years a Slave—will helm a new documentary on Tupac Shakur, which will be produced in conjunction with the rapper’s estate. Reports The Hollywood Reporter:
Shakur Estate trustee Tom Whalley and Amaru Entertainment, the company created by Afeni Shakur to release her son’s posthumous projects, announced today that Nigel Sinclair’s White Horse Pictures and Jayson Jackson will team up to produce a fully authorized documentary.
In a statement, McQueen briefly talked about his personal connection to Tupac:
I am extremely moved and excited to be exploring the life and times of this legendary artist, said McQueen. I attended NYU film school in 1993 and can remember the unfolding hip-hop world and mine overlapping with Tupac’s through a mutual friend in a small way. Few, if any shined brighter than Tupac Shakur. I look forward to working closely with his family to tell the unvarnished story of this talented man.
McQueen’s documentary, which doesn’t yet have a targeted release date, will add to a deluge of new Tupac-related films set to be released in the near future. All Eyez on Me, a biopic by veteran music video director Benny Boom, will be released this summer, while Johnny Depp will play a detective assigned to Tupac and Biggie’s murders in a film called Labyrinth. McQueen, meanwhile, is also directing a heist film called Widows, starring Liam Neeson and Viola Davis.
