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The Cast for Lee Daniels’s Richard Pryor Movie Is Comically Good

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The Richard Pryor biopic has been gestating for a long time. Director of 48 Hours Walter Hill was set to co-write and direct the movie back in 2005, when Pryor was still alive. Mike Epps gave a killer audition and won Pryor’s approval. Pryor died shortly thereafter, and the movie went stagnant. Then Epps was supposed to play Pryor in a Nina Simone biopic that’s had so many problems it might as well be cursed. Now the Pryor film has finally been green-lit, Deadline reports. Lee Daniels is at the helm, filming a script by Bill Condon and Empire collaborator Danny Strong. The cast is stellar: Oprah Winfrey will play Pryor’s grandmother, Eddie Murphy Pryor’s father, and Kate Hudson Pryor’s widow. Pryor, the man who once said, “I’m not a movie star, I’m a booty star,” will still be portrayed by Epps, ten years after he initially won the role. Marlon Wayans briefly had the role when Condon was slated to direct and Adam Sandler was slated to produce, but that didn’t work out. (Imagine a Richard Pryor movie produced by Adam Sandler. That’d be like a Beatles biopic produced by Nickelback.)

Comically Good Cast Set for Richard Pryor Movie