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John Singleton Slams Tupac Biopic 'All Eyez on Me': 'They Didn't Think of It As a Cultural Event'

The filmmaker twice joined and left the film.

When up-and-coming cartoonist Keef Knight has a traumatic run-in with the police, he begins to see the world in an entirely new way.

Film director, screenwriter and producer John Singleton was not once but twice attached to the Tupac Shakur biopic All Eyez on Me but left due to creative differences, so it probably shouldn't come as a big surprise the didn't like how the film turned out. 

Speaking with Atlanta's V-103 last week, while promoting his new FX television series Snowfall, the Boyz n the Hood auteur called the film a "debacle" and said he was both disappointed with how it turned out and that he didn't get to make it. 

"They just made a movie; they didn't think of it as a cultural event," he said. "They didn't think of it in terms of something that affected our generation. People who are younger, who are younger, who don't really understand the legacy of Tupac Amaru Shakur, they just go to a movie and they see a rap star. But dude was much more than a rap star. So that's why I'm really upset."

He added, "They made the Aaliyah version of Pac, referring to the largely panned Lifetime biopic of late R&B singer. "Worse than that."

Singleton also explained how he joined the film, left it, joined again and left again. 

"I walked off that movie twice. The only reason I stayed in the second time was 'cause [Shakur's late mother] Afeni was like she didn't care about the movie until I got involved. But the problem was they realized that me and [Afeni] were working together on what we thought the movie should be. And that made L.T. [Hutton, co-producer] and those people that he works for upset because they really wanted to push her to the side."

 

 

Watch the full interview here, with Singleton discussing All Eyez on Me around the 7 minute mark:

 

 

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