Eddie Murphy to play Mayor Marion Barry in Spike Lee biopic

Movie Eddie Murphy Spike Lee about 12 years agoby

Eddie Murphy

is set to team with

Spike Lee

on an upcoming biopic. The Washington Post reports that the Tower Heist star is set to play former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry in the biopic, which is based on the book written by Harry Jaffe and Tom Sherwood's "Dream City: Race, Power and the Decline of Washington, D.C." The movie will also pull from the 2009 documentary by Dana Flor and Toby Oppenheimer called The Nine Lives of Marion Barry.

Here is some background on the iconic mayor:

Barry served three straight terms as Mayor of the District of Columbia between 1979 and 1991. Despite being arrested and convicted for crack cocaine use in 1990, Barry ran again and won a fourth term between 1995 and 1999 and, despite no longer being in office, is still referred to with the nickname of D.C.'s "Mayor-for-life".

Before Lee and Murphy start work on this biopic, they both have other projects lined up. Murphy will star in the horrible looking film A Thousand Words next year and will provide the voice of the title character in Hong Kong Phooey. We have a remake of Park Chan-wook's Old Boy to look forward to (or not) from Lee.

I think that Murphy should star in more films that show off his acting abilities and steer as far away from family-friendly films as possible. He has done that and I for one am tired of seeing him do it. What are your thoughts on this casting news?