Antoine Fuqua trades Tupac Shakur biopic for Eminem's boxing drama

Antoine Fuqua could be a busy man, if any of his potential projects ever got off the friggin' ground. We've seen his name attached to like half a dozen movies over the last few months: The Wolverine sequel to Chinese epics, to films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. But the one that was most prominent and appeared to be the one he was most invested in was a biopic on the life of slain rapper Tupac Shakur. Only it appears that film is now completely off the table, and Fuqua has moved on to a project involving another controverisal hip hop star.

24 Frames reports that Fuqua has dropped out of the Tupac film for unknown reasons, and is instead circling Southpaw, the boxing drama starring Eminem that we first wrote about back in December. This is strange because Fuqua had been in the midst of a very public national casting call for the Tupac role. Finding someone to match his charisma and volatile personality couldn't have been easy. Not even Anthony Mackie could pull it off in Notorious. Without Fuqua, what're the chances this movie gets done? Highly unlikely, if you ask me.

As for Southpaw, the film puts Marshall Mathers squarely back into Detroit, where instead of bustin' a phat rhyme he throws heavy blows as a lefty welterweight boxer. Of course it won't be easy as he makes his way to a championship bout, suffering personal tragedies and such along the way. The story was dreamed up and written by Kurt Sutter(Sons of Anarchy), working closely with Eminem on it. 

No official deal is in place for Fuqua or Eminem as of yet, but it seems like a perfect fit for both. Fuqua has shot a number of his films in some of the toughest neighborhoods in the country, so Detroit will probably feel like home for him. This would be Eminem's first starring role since his acclaimed debut in 8 Mile back in 2002.

Hey, Detroit looks great in movies, but ultimately it's a pretty sh*t town. David Zucker knew it, which is why he always made jokes like this about it...