Tupac biopic All Eyez on Me gets a thrilling trailer

A new trail­er has been released for All Eyez on Me, the upcom­ing biopic that promis­es to delve into the life of icon­ic rap­per, activist and some­time actor Tupac Shakur.

Direct­ed by Ben­ny Boom, it depicts Tupac’s child­hood expe­ri­ence with the Black Pan­thers, the rev­o­lu­tion­ary group of which his par­ents were members.

As he grows up, we see the rap­per strug­gle with his desire to unite the black com­mu­ni­ty, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly being drawn into violence.

When it was announced that Demetrius Shipp Jr had been cast in the lead role, much was made of the actor’s strik­ing resem­blance to the rap­per. This trail­er shows Shipp Jr kit­ted out in Tupac’s nose stud, chains and ban­dana, his uncan­ny resem­blance mak­ing that weird Coachel­la holo­gram seem all the more ridiculous.

Jamal Woolard, who first played Tupac’s fren­e­my Big­gie Smalls aka The Noto­ri­ous B.I.G. in the 2009 film Noto­ri­ous, looks to be anoth­er inspired piece of casting.

The film’s pro­duc­tion was beset by mul­ti­ple delays and legal issues. Antoine Fuqua was the first high-pro­file name attached to direct, but was replaced by John Sin­gle­ton in 2014.

Sin­gle­ton even­tu­al­ly left the project, tak­ing to Insta­gram to announce, ​“the peo­ple involved aren’t real­ly respect­ful of the lega­cy of Tupac Amaru Shakur,” and cit­ing a legal dis­pute with Shakur’s moth­er as a major fac­tor for his depar­ture. He was replaced by anoth­er direc­tor before Boom final­ly land­ed the gig.

All Eyez on Me takes its title from the rapper’s fourth album, released in 1996. Shakur was only 25 years old when he was killed lat­er that year.

The cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing his death remain a mys­tery, and fan con­spir­a­cies have since focused on his immi­nent res­ur­rec­tion – all eyes are on Shipp to see if he can live up to this mam­moth task.

LWLies 107: The Sin­ners issue – Out now!