Update: Journalist Kevin Powell voluntarily his lawsuit against Lionsgate and others associated with the Tupac biopic All Eyez On Me. According to The Jasmine Brand, Powell's dismissal allows for him to refile claims brought up at a later time if he desires.
Powell initially claimed the movie was created from interviews he conducted with Tupac, along with articles he wrote about the deceased rapper.
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Activist/journalist Kevin Powell named Lionsgate, Morgan Creek and others associated with All Eyez On Me in a complaint filed against the film's creators in New York federal court on Friday, June 23. Powell's suit requests that the judge orders theaters to stop showing the movie and seeks a share of profits already earned from the L.T. Hutton production, with a claim that the film uses content ripped from a series of Vibe features he did on 2Pac in the 1990s. Powell also accuses the film's makers of going so far as to use his likeness in the film without providing him compensation.
The suit claims that All Eyez On Me presents Powell in the form of an unnamed interviewer played by actor Hill Harper. Powell's famous interviews with Tupac in Clinton Correctional Facility back in 1995 are one of his claims to fame. The movie does incorporate scenes that show Pac being interviewed in prison. What's more, Powell makes a connection with other areas of the film that are unique to his Vibe articles, including details he himself imagined up in order to cover up the identities of certain subjects he was covering. For example, the film makes the mistake of actually naming one of its characters "Nigel," which was a name made up by Powell and assigned to a man (believed to be Jimmy Henchman) in one of his articles so as to avoid exposing him at the time.
Powell claims that not only was a significant amount of detail in the movie lifted from his work, but that the very narrative of Tupac's transition from a child of a revolutionary upbringing to his immersion into and representation of street culture through his raps, and how it is paced out, is eerily similar to how his editorials were constructed.
“After a great deal of thought and consultation with many, including my attorneys, I have filed a federal lawsuit against the producers and writers of ‘All Eyez On Me’, the new Tupac Shakur biopic, for copyright infringement," Powell writes in the suit.
“I am seeking justice and a resolution in this matter that is fully fair to me and all the work I’ve done throughout the years, as an author and protector of the Tupac Shakur narrative."
Source: facebook.com
