Quincy Jones Plans a Film About Tupac

Original: “Quincy Jones May Steer Tupac Biopic” · MTV News · no byline · May 30, 1997

On May 30, 1997, MTV News reported on a project with unusual proximity: music producer Quincy Jones was close to an agreement with Afeni Shakur regarding a feature film about Tupac’s life. Jones was the father of Tupac’s last girlfriend, Kidada Jones.

Panthers, Drug Addiction, and Competition on the Video Shelf

The film was also intended to depict Afeni’s years with the Black Panthers and her struggle with drug addiction. It was not the only project in those days: actress Jasmine Guy, a friend of Tupac’s, was also developing a film at the time.

In video stores, a documentary was already on the shelves at the time: Tupac Shakur: Thug Immortal sold around 40,000 copies in its first week, according to Videoscan, ranking among the country’s five top-selling videos. Included was a CD featuring an interview from August 1996.

No Film from Jones: “All Eyez on Me” Followed Only in 2017

Quincy Jones’s film was never made. The feature film about Tupac did not arrive until 20 years later: All Eyez on Me was released in theaters in 2017, starring Demetrius Shipp Jr. in the lead role, and was overwhelmingly panned by critics. Jada Pinkett Smith, one of Tupac’s closest friends, publicly criticized how the film portrayed her relationship with Tupac.

More successful was the path Afeni Shakur took herself: the documentary Tupac: Resurrection (2003), produced by her label Amaru with MTV Films, narrates Tupac’s life almost exclusively in his own words and was nominated for an Academy Award. Jasmine Guy later wrote a biography of Afeni Shakur.

Kidada Jones was the woman Tupac was with on the night of September 7, 1996, in Las Vegas. Her father, Quincy Jones, died in November 2024.