Tupac Estate Sued Over Film Rights

The estate of fallen icon Tupac Shakur is embroiled in litigation over a potential film adaption on the legend’s tumultuous life.   Morgan Creek, a film production company headed by Rick Nicita, has sued Afeni Shakur’s Amaru Entertainment over an alleged agreement to sell Tupac’s life rights.   According to court records filed in Los […]

The estate of fallen icon Tupac Shakur is embroiled in litigation over a potential film adaption on the legend’s tumultuous life.

 

Morgan Creek, a film production company headed by Rick Nicita, has sued Afeni Shakur’s Amaru Entertainment over an alleged agreement to sell Tupac’s life rights.

 

According to court records filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, both companies began their negotiations last November.

 

As reported by Reuters, Morgan Creek is seeking damages on the grounds that Afeni Shakur and Amaru Entertainment are “refusing to honor and perform a contract of a production of the film based on the life of Tupac Shakur.”

 

Afeni Shakur’s lawyer Skip Miller completely denies the allegations, and claims that Morgan Creek has destroyed attempts for his client to negotiate her son’s life with other movie studios.

 

“There is no agreement with Morgan Creek, there never was, and there never will be,” Miller explained to Reuters. “They have scared away Paramount, Fox, and others, and we are going to sue them and recover millions [in damages].”

 

Insiders have speculated that negotiations between the two parties broke down after the release of the Notorious B.I.G. biopic Notorious.

 

Despite the film doing well with its limited theater showing, reports state the companies became hesitant since the unprecedented film was not a box office smash.

 

Tupac’s last film project, the Academy Award-nominated documentary Tupac: Resurrection, has grossed $8 million since its 2003 release.

 

Since then, various attempts to bring his life to the big screen has fell apart.

 

Tupac Shakur was murdered in 1996 in a still unsolved Las Vegas drive-by shooting.

 

Still, 13 years later he remains one of the most popular figures in music, and retains the most sales in Hip-Hop history with over 50 million records sold.

 

At press time, a court date has not been announced.