A new trailer has arrive for this year’s Tupac Shakur movie biopic, titled All Eyez On Me. Biopics have always been able to draw impressive numbers at the box office, and the U.S.’s tumultuous political climate has revealed a particular need for films about important figures in minority history. Last winter, Hidden Figures - which tells the true story of three black female mathematicians at NASA - swept the box office; while in 2015, Straight Outta Compton more than quadrupled its $50 million budget. Now, the Tupac biopic aim to contribute to that successful legacy.

All Eyez On Me, which tells the life story of Tupac from his childhood and rise to fame to his untimely death in 1996, has been in development since 2011. Finally, we saw an All Eyez on Me teaser trailer last year, followed by two more All Eyez on Me short trailers thereafter. With an official June release date in the works for the movie, fan excitement for this upcoming project is growing. To add to that growing fervor, CODEBLACK Films has released the first official All Eyez On Me trailer.

The trailer, which you can watch above, summarizes the events of the film (and Tupac’s life) chronologically, depicting him from childhood until his fateful shooting in Las Vegas. All Eyez On Me appears to focus particularly on Tupac’s relationship to burgeoning civil rights activism in the late 1980s and early ’90s, as well as his controversial rise to fame.

Music video director Benny Boom helmed All Eyez On Me, a movie mainly comprised of newcomers despite its high-profile production. Demetrius Shipp, Jr. plays Tupac, alongside Danai Gurira (as Tupac’s mother, Afeni) and Lauren Cohan (as Leila Steinberg, his mentor). Both Gurira and Cohan have previously worked together, as lead members of the ensemble cast for AMC’s The Walking Dead.

Much like the young rapper’s life, however, All Eyez On Me is not without its controversies. Morgan Creek Productions, who partnered with Program Pictures and CODEBLACK Films to make the biopic, reportedly used some shady methods to secure the rights to Tupac’s estate for this film. Though the rapper’s mother, Afeni Shakur, is credited as an executive producer on All Eyez On Me, Morgan Creek sued her in 2011 in an attempt to procure the rights to Tupac’s music. The project’s former director, John Singleton, who directed Tupac himself in Poetic Justice, also said that “The people involved aren’t really respectful of the legacy of Tupac” in an Instagram post.

Fan reactions to this upcoming project are mixed, with some steering clear of the shady production and others just ecstatic to finally see a Tupac movie. Whether this film will do justice to the legendary figure that was Tupac, or whether it will just make a grab for some major biopic money, remains to be seen.

Source: CODEBLACK Films

  • All Eyez on Me Release Date: 2017-06-16