The trailer for City of Lies, the Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur murder-investigation drama, announces the film’s long-awaited U.S. debut. Its theatrical trailer was released on Tuesday, March 9, 2021 by Saban Films. After shelving the Brad Furman-directed film in 2018 due to lawsuit filed against the film’s star Johnny Depp, City of Lies is finally set to premiere in theaters on March 19th and release on PVOD on April 9th.
The film’s first trailer came out in May of 2018 and had a small release in Italy in January 2019. City of Lies maintains the relevancy of the convoluted and tragic murders of the two prolific rap artists, as the drama comes right on the heels of Netflix’s documentary Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell (2021), which premiered March 1st.
City of Lies, based on ex-LAPD officer Randall Sullivan’s novel LAbyrinth (the film’s original name), tells of one detective’s revisitation of the Biggie (Christopher Wallace) and Tupac murders. Christian Contreras penned the adapted screenplay about the killings that took place within six months of each other in what some theories boil down to an East Coast vs. West Coast feud.
Depp stars as retired detective Russell Poole with Forest Whitaker playing investigative journalist Jack Jackson. Supporting cast includes Rockmond Dunbar (9-1-1, Prison Break) as Dreadlocks, Neil Brown Jr. (Seal Team, Straight Outta Compton) as Rafeal Perez, and Louis Herthum (West World, True Blood) in the role of City Attorney Stone. It is also said that Biggie’s mother Voletta Wallace plays herself in the film about her son’s unsolved murder.
The film was initially meant to release domestically on September 7, 2018 (Biggie’s 46th birthday) by Global Road Entertainment, but was pulled from the lineup in August. This came as a direct result of the assault and battery lawsuit filed by City of Lies’ location manager Gregg “Rocky” Brooks against Johnny Depp. The alleged incident took place on set in spring of 2017 after Brooks informed Depp that filming would go late into that night. The legal case has been rescheduled a number of times and a verdict has yet to be made.
The full trailer can be seen below:
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