Marlon Wayans 'to play Richard Pryor'
Marlon Wayans 'to play Richard Pryor'
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Comedian and actor Marlon Wayans is reportedly in advanced talks to play comedy legend Richard Pryor in an upcoming biopic.
Eddie Murphy had previously been attached to play the groundbreaking stand-up in Bill Condon's Richard Pryor: Is It Something I Said? but left the project after a conflict with Paramount Pictures, which at that point had been developing the film.
But following a successful screen-test for Adam Sandler's Happy Madison Productions and Sony Pictures, GI Joe actor Wayans will now step into the shoes of Pryor.
According to Entertainment Weekly, Wayans "transformed into Pryor" in his 13-minute screen-test for the role, "blowing the producers away".
Best known for his comedic roles in the likes of Scary Movie and White Chicks, 37-year-old Wayans is a graduate of the Fiorello H LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York City, the school immortalised in the Fame films and television series.
Though comedy has dominated Wayans' acting career, the New Yorker was also critically acclaimed for his role in Darren Aronofsky's 2000 film Requiem For A Dream, meaning the dramatic rigours of telling Pryor's life story will be well within his reach.
Currently budgeted at $20 million, Richard Pryor: Is It Something I Said? is to be produced by comedian Chris Rock, Pryor's widow Jennifer Lee Pryor and Mark Gordon, with the terms of Wayans' contract close to being finalised.
An Emmy and Grammy award winner, Pryor died aged 65 in 2005, following a seminal comedy career in which he provided unflinching discussions of his poverty-stricken childhood, racial tensions in the US and his own drug abuse.