Studio buys movie rights to Notorious B.I.G. story

US rap singer Notorious B.I.G. is shown on stage at the 1996 Soul Train Music Awards.

LOS ANGELES - Fox Searchlight Pictures has bought the rights to make a film about the life of slain rapper Christopher Wallace, better known as Notorious B.I.G.

Fox Searchlight, said the film will be produced by Voletta Wallace, the mother of the rapper, Wayne Barrow and Mark Sitts, his former music managers.

Notorious B.I.G. rose from the streets of Brooklyn to become one of the most influential hip-hop artists of the 1990s.

In a killing widely attributed to a long-running feud between East and West Coast record labels, Wallace was gunned down in 1997 in Los Angeles, six months after Tupac Shakur, another leading rapper, was shot dead in Las Vegas.

The Wallace family has claimed that former Los Angeles police officer David Mack, now in prison for robbery, arranged for a college friend to shoot Wallace. The family said Mack was tied to Shakur's music label, Death Row Records, and that Wallace, signed to rival Bad Boy Entertainment, was killed in retaliation for Shakur's death.

Earlier this month, Wallace's relatives vowed to renew a wrongful-death suit against the city of Los Angeles after a US judge declared a mistrial in the case and accused police of concealing evidence.

Wallace's relatives have said they brought their suit to shed light on the rap star's unsolved murder. A lawyer for the city has denounced the family's theory as based on unreliable witnesses and evidence.

Antoine Fuqua, who directed Training Day, King Arthur and Tears of the Sun, is in negotiations to direct the film, while Cheo Hodari Coker will write the screenplay.

Coker, a former journalist, was the last person to interview Wallace before his death, according to Fox. Coker also wrote a biography entitled, Unbelievable: The Life, Death, and Afterlife of the Notorious B.I.G.

- REUTERS