John Singleton blasted the upcoming “All Eyez On Me” Tupac biopic and explained how he was phased out of directing the film in a conversation with civil rights activist Deray Mckesson at ComplexCon last weekend.
Singleton refuses to watch the trailers for the movie. “I haven’t watched it, and I refuse to watch it,” said Singleton. “I know that they f**ked it up, so I’m not even trying to give it attention.” Singleton knew 2Pac personally and had a specific vision for the film which was not embraced by his Hollywood counterparts. “I didn’t want to make [the film] for many, many years,” he explained. “First of all, people wanted the story to be told, but I was so close to him. I was too close to tell the story of it. I saw other directors come on and something clicked in me saying I wanted to do it. I told the company if y’all m****af**kas want to do this, you gotta get the f**k out my face and let me do this movie.” Singleton wanted to do justice to Pac’s story which he was very much a part of. They worked together on “Poetic Justice” in 1993 and built a close relationship from there.
“Serious, his soul wasn’t going to rest unless this film was done right,” he said. “It’s not about just some rapper. It’s about a dude who was raised to be a revolutionary. He may not have been the next Malcolm X, but he had the potential to be a great leader in this country.” Singleton said he started doing research to create the film by talking to the people who were around 2Pac during different parts of his life. He discovered all of these people had different perspectives which they wanted to be reflected in the film. “They want to make the Tupac story that involves them and not THE Tupac story. I did a great script, and I thought they were going to go forward with it, but because I’m so mouthy and opinionated, some people don’t like to work with a black man in Hollywood who has an opinion. I knew they weren’t going to make a good movie at all and they didn’t.”
Source: hiphopdx.com
