Having reanimated the long-troubled 70s street thriller American Gangster and reunited with his Gladiator cohort Russell Crowe, director Ridley Scott is now amassing an abundance of additional actors.
Desperately in search of cred, Scott has gathered raptors Common, TI and The RZA, who’ll have to retcon some rhymes to fit the pre-Sugarhill Gang era in which the flick is set. The cast has also inflated by one Yul Vazquez (Bad Boys II), the awesome Chiwetel Ejiofor, Miami Vice villain John Ortiz, and Acting Sensation Mayor Ted Levine.
The Universal project, once set to be directed by Antoine Fuqua before someone got wise, is set in 1970s Harlem and is based on the real-life story of a cop (Crowe) trying to take down a notorious drug dealer (played by Denzel Washington) who imports his heroin in the coffins of soldiers killed in The Nam.
(By the way, that pic of Crowe in fashionably outdated garb comes from this Korean site. Thanks, Mike Kim!)