Justice Smith, Idris Elba, Taylour Paige to star in Daveed Diggs-Scripted Pic ‘We All Die Young’
Deadline is reporting that Justice Smith, Idris Elba and Taylour Paige will star in We All Die Young, a drama that Hamilton star Daveed Diggs has scripted for Jake Schreier to direct.
Schreier directed Robot & Frank and Paper Towns, and has worked closely with such rappers as Kanye West and Chance the Rapper. The film will be produced by Temple Hill’s Wyck Godfrey, Marty Bowen and Isaac Klausner with Diggs, Schreier and Benny Blanco. Rapper YG is exec producing and Aaron Lammer is co-producing. CAA Media Finance and WME will handle domestic distribution, while FilmNation handles international. Production begins in March.
Based on a story by Diggs and Chinaka Hodge, the film focuses on Marcus (Smith), a rapper in the midst of breaking big and undertaking the biggest live tour anyone has ever seen. At the same time, he’s under pressure to make new music and is hopelessly blocked. He meets a young women (Paige) who convinces him to take a breath, which puts him at odds to the owner of the record label (Elba) who raised Marcus and is his mentor.
It’s a midlife crisis like Fellini’s 8 1/2. Only here, that crisis comes in his early 20s, because young Black men in the rap industry often don’t live to see 30.