50 Cent has declared he's making a modern version of Eminem's sort-of biographical movie 8 Mile, and he's got the legendary rapper's blessing to do it.
Over 20 years ago now Eminem released a movie which was semi-based on his life and his early attempts to break into rap which he also starred in as the lead role as Jimmy 'B-Rabbit' Smith Jr.
It won an Academy Award for the song 'Lose Yourself', though the rapper didn't go to the awards ceremony and slept through it as he didn't think a rap track would win.
Critics and audiences gave it the thumbs up, making the movie a success at the box office, while Eminem himself would also pick up several personal accolades for his performance in the film.
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8 Mile was a big success pretty much any way you want to measure it, but it was more than 20 years ago since it was released and 50 Cent has been talking about plans in place to bring it back as a TV series.
Speaking in an interview with Big Boy TV, the rapper said Eminem was approving of the project and involved with it, declaring plans to make the 2002 film into a TV series were already 'in motion'.
Referring to the previous success of TV shows he'd produced like his long running series Power and its various spin-offs, 50 Cent was confident he'd be able to do 8 Mile justice.
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He said: "I’m gonna bring his 8 Mile to television. It's gonna be big. I’m working. I ain’t got no duds. I’m battin' a hundred, I’m battin' a hundred. I think it should be there for his legacy.
"I wanna be able to show and offer a lot more details, things that you would say in an interview or different things that you’ve already used, that you put out there, and stuff like that.
"You’ll see those things kind of surface and the temperament of the characters."
The rapper compared the goal with his 8 Mile reboot to Bel Air, the rebooted and updated version of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
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However, not everybody thinks bringing 8 Mile back is such a good idea, as one of the stars of the 2002 film has said he wants it to stay untouched.
Mekhi Pfifer, who played David 'Future' Porter in the movie, said recently it was 'just best to leave it alone' rather than trying to remake the 'classic' as he saw 'no reason to fool around with it'.
Speaking about the possibility of a sequel or some sort of follow up to 8 Mile, he said 'the story that we told is the story' and suggested that while it 'could be interesting' he suspected that neither he nor Eminem would be back to reprise their roles.
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Once upon a time there had been talks for some sort of sequel in the works, with Jake Gyllenhaal attached to the project, but that movie ultimately became its own thing and ended up as the 2015 film Southpaw.
Topics: Eminem, 50 Cent, Rap, Music, Film and TV
Joe Harker