WELCOME TO DEATH ROW Is Another STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON Sequel Being Shopped Around
Last week, we learned that Daz Dillinger was working on developing a unofficial sequel to Straight Outta Compton called Dogg Pound 4 Life. It would focus on the careers of West Coast stars Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg, Warren G, Kurupt, and of course, Dillinger. Now there's a new sequel project being shopped around the studios called Welcome to Death Row. It is based on a book and documentary of the same name, and the story revolves around many of the same people that were included in Straight Outta Compton's story.
The news comes from THR, and they offer the following information:
"While Compton chronicles the rise and breakup of seminal gangsta rap group N.W.A — a span that covers nearly a decade from the late 1980s to 1996 — and features the group's members Ice Cube, Dr. Dre and the late Eazy-E as the film's three main protagonists, Welcome to Death Row involves the years after N.W.A formed, one of the most explosive and controversial periods in music history. It's an era when rappers like Dre, Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur forged mega-solo careers and Death Row Records' Suge Knight reigned as the most powerful and feared hip-hop executive in the business."
There's one big snag, though: there are no music rights attached to the film project. It would be incredibly hard to make a decent movie based on this era of gangsta rap without the music. If the music isn't there, then what's the point? Of course there's a chance that they could obtain the rights to the music later in the development process.
The movie is being shopped around by S. Leigh Savidge, who received a story and co-executive producer credit on Compton. He was able to bring in N.W.A's music rights into the project after he and Alan Wenkus began writing the film back in 2002.
It would be great if Universal Pictures picked this one up so that they could bring together the same team to bring this next chapter of rap culture's history to life on the big screen. It sounds like it would be the next logical step. There's definitely an audience out there for it, but who knows — Universal might have another plan brewing behind the scenes that we don't know about yet.