Considering the bulk of hip hop nowadays is a bunch of dudes pretending to be exactly what they aren't, I find it funny they continue to be the hardest people to be portrayed on film. We can find a thousand people to play Richard Nixon, or JFK, or Marilyn Monroe, but try finding somebody to play Tupac. Or Biggie Smalls. It ain't easy. And when the rapper is the late Ol' Dirty Bastard, the most bizarre member of the Wu-Tang Clan, I imagine it's damn near impossible.
That might explain why it's been so long since we've heard any progress on the biopic about the rapper, announced at least a couple of years ago. XXL recently had a chance to talk to Wu-Tang Clan founder, producer, and badass director the RZA, who says the script by ODB's brother Raeshawn is complete. What's more, he says that Eddie Griffin is on board to star...
Rza: I think Eddie [Griffin]’s already signed on with a letter of Intent—I signed on, of course. So you know [Raeshawn] got my blessin’ to make it happen.”
Eddie Griffin is better than his crappy recent straight-to-DVD flicks, but I don't envy him trying to emulate ODB's manic personality. It's just not possible. So maybe he'll need a little help? RZA seems to think somebody else can handle the job as well...
RZA: “Me and Eddie talked about it, laughed about it. Tracy Morgan, he wanna do it [too]. I said ‘Ya’ll both kinda can do it.’”
Eh, now that I don't see. Tracy Morgan is crazy, no doubt, but he ain't ODB crazy. I have my doubts this film will ever get off the ground, and if it does it likely won't be in a theater, but packaged with some Wu-Tang Clan compilation album or something. Call it a hunch. For now. we'll just have to keep waiting for RZA to finish wrapping up his martial arts epic, The Man with the Iron Fist.
