Here's a curious one.
Eminem has set
his next starring vehicle, a boxing drama titled
Southpaw, written by the creator of Son of Anarchy and to be produced by Dreamworks CEO Stacey Snider who I imagine when she was at Universal was one of the few people who believed in
8 Mile nearly a decade ago, and produced that film to critical and box office acclaim. Like 8 Mile, once again this will be a Quasi-Biopic of
Marshall Bruce Mathers III's tumultuous life, but this time focusing on his last five years or so and his family problems and substance abuse, which will be disguised in the plot of a welterweight boxer who attempts to resurrect the early successes' of his career and conquer the inner demons and personal tragedies that have plagued him ever since. It all sounds very familiar and very routine for the boxing genre but with Eminem as the lead, the parables to his own life make it all the more exciting. Son Of Anarchy creator & writer
Kurt Sutter says,
"I know he's very selective and doesn't do a lot. But he shared so much of his personal struggle in this raw and very honest album, one that I connected with on a lot of levels. He is very interested in the boxing genre, and it seemed like an apt metaphor, because his own life has been a brawl. In a way, this is a continuation of the 8 Milestory, but rather than a literal biography, we are doing a metaphorical narrative of the second chapter of his life. He'll play a world champion boxer who really hits a hard bottom, and has to fight to win back his life for his young daughter. At its core, this is a retelling of his struggles over the last five years of his life, using the boxing analogy. I love that the title refers to Marshall being a lefty, which is to boxing what a white rapper is to hip hop; dangerous, unwanted and completely unorthodox. It's a much harder road for a southpaw than a right handed boxer."So it's almost 8 Mile Part II - but set in the boxing world.
Sutter will be working on his draft for a few more weeks before sending it to Dreamworks in February. Although there's no word on it yet, presumably Sutter is planning to direct unless his time on Son of Anarchy means he has to give it to someone else... and if that's the case surely 8 Mile director
Curtis Hanson will get first refusal? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idBm6OKzkAE