An Awfully B.I.G. Adventure

Strange but true*: Antoine Fuqua's "To Do" list is so huge it has to be carried around by forklift truck. At one point, he was planning Tru Blu, the story of a 70s drug kingpin. When that went tits up, Fuqua, undeterred, started work on an Al Capone biopic, The Untouchables: Capone Rising, and Under and Alone, starring Mel Gibson. Now, according to MTV Films, he's adding a biopic of rapper Notorious B.I.G. to that slate. According to the channel, Fuqua's working on the project together with B.I.G.'s mother and P.Diddy, one of the rapper's close collaborators. B.I.G., aka Biggie Smalls, aka Christopher Wallace, was an honour student turned street hustler turned rapper. After being signed up to P.Diddy's (or Puff Daddy as he then was) Bad Boy Records, B.I.G. became an almost overnight sensation. Unfortunately, he also became a focus of the East Coast / West Coast feud between rival rappers, leading to his fatal shooting just a few weeks before his 25th birthday. Since then, B.I.G.'s posthumously released albums have topped the charts and he has remained very much in the public consciousness, so it's no real surprise that a film is in the works. Cheo Hodari Coker, author of biography "Unbelievable: The Life, Death and Afterlife of the Notorious B.I.G.", will be writing the screenplay. While there's no definitive word on the casting of the male lead yet, some of the rappers associates ( Li'l Kim, Junior M.A.F.I.A., P.Diddy and Faith Evans, B.I.G.'s wife) may play themselves. We'll keep you up to date as we hear more. *Not actually true.