Kenya Barris has been set to write and direct the proposed biopic of comedian Richard Pryor at MGM.
Pryor’s work ran across television, film and stand-up and he was the first recipient of the Mark Twain Humor Prize for humor along with winning numerous Emmys, WGA Awards and Grammys as he offered a raw and personal approach to comedy.
Attempts have been made to adapt Pryor’s life to film for some time, the most notable being one helmed by Lee Daniels, penned by Bill Condon and Danny Strong, and starring Mike Epps as Pryor and Oprah Winfrey as his grandmother. That version never made it out of development.
Barris says in a statement: “The way Pryor did what he did – with truth and specificity that was somehow self-aware and self-deprecating, and said with an unmatched level of vulnerability – that was the power and impact of his work. Pryor had a voice that was distinctly his and, in many ways, comedy since then has been derivative of what he created. To me, this is a film about that voice, the journey that shaped it, and what it took for it to come to be.”
Barris, Tory Metzger and Jennifer Lee Pryor will produce.
Source: THR
