I’ve had the privilige of interviewing the RZA, one of the founders of
the Wu-Tang Clan and a serious modern Renaissance man. RZA’s a
thoughtful, smart guy who isn’t content with just changing the face of
hip hop forever; he’s been branching out into movies and now philosophy
with a book called The Tao of Wu.
While interviewing RZA about the book, the Onion’s Nathan Rabin got
some interesting info about future RZA film projects, including the
Iron Fist (not the Marvel character) movie he’s working on with Eli
Roth that CHUD broke a couple of years ago. What really caught my
attention, though, was the talk of a possible biopic about Wu Tang’s
deceased member Ol’ Dirty Bastard. Says RZA:
We have talked about it. His estate is pretty confused, like any
estate is in our country. The estate is kind of confused on what to do,
and all the rights and all that shit, but it’s definitely been talked
about. There’s also been talk about a Wu-Tang Clan movie. So we’ll see
what life brings. In my opinion, I’d rather see an ODB pic than a
Wu-Tang Clan pic, because Wu-Tang is still alive, and may be active for
a few more years. But an ODB pic, just to really describe his life,
would be good. Right now, there is a documentary that’s done that’s
pretty good. It ain’t a knock out of the park, but it’s pretty good, it
gives a nice piece of him. Then you start with that, and we can build
more awareness about his life, and build more interest in people seeing
a movie about it.
With Notorious, the Biggie Smalls biopic, hip hop has officially
entered the “rise and fall of musicians” genre, and ODB’s tumultuous,
fucked up life would make a terrific screen story in the traditional
mold.
For more on Iron Fist and a remake of The Last Dragon (as well as
RZA’s batshit stupid theories on homosexuality), visit the Onion.