Two years before “8 Mile”, Eminem was supposed to play a villain opposite DMX in The Crow franchise.
Screenwriter James Gibson shared the story with horror-focused media Bloody Disgusting. He revealed that the idea was to make a hip hop Crow movie. In 1999, against the backdrop of the high-profile Tupac and B.I.G killings, it seemed like a natural twist in the Crow universe. And DMX, who was the biggest star in the game at that time, looked like the best choice. Gibson started writing a screenplay with DMX playing a protagonist in mind. Then Joseph Kahn, who had already made himself a name directing hip hop videos, was recruited as a director.
Together they came up with the idea that a villain would also be a Crow, with the same powers and invincibility. An antagonist had to be a perfect match to DMX hero, and this is when Eminem enters the scene:
“We wrote a draft. DMX loved it. They were trying to figure out who they were going to get to play opposite him. I think they were approached by Eminem’s people. And Eminem was just as picky as DMX then. 2000, 2001, he was blowing up huge. He said if DMX was going to be in the movie, he wanted to be in the movie. So we decided, ‘Okay, yeah. Let’s have him play Stone.’ Obviously, in that draft, it hadn’t been tailored to him yet. I think having that guy be white was going to change the dynamics somewhat. But it was nothing that couldn’t have been done with a few tweaks here and there. But he read the script, even though the character was written as black, he knew it was gonna be tailored to him and he agreed to do it. They had made a deal with him, they were going to pay him like $4 million or something to be in it. And this is like two years before 8 Mile.
So he hadn’t been in a movie yet. This was going to be his motion picture debut. So it was going to be DMX as the good guy, the most badass guy in the world with a lot of heart. Eminem playing a mustache-twirling bad guy, the most villainous guy in the world. Obviously a gigantic, huge soundtrack. You’ve got the two biggest rappers, you know? It just seemed to me like it can’t lose, right?”
Yet still, the project has never moved beyond the script. Miramax officials intervened to veto the choice of actors:
“This is what they were told, and just this kills me. They got a call from either Harvey or Bob Weinstein. It might’ve been Bob, because he was in charge of Dimension. ‘Nobody wants to see a movie with two rappers,’ was what he said. ‘Nobody wants to see a movie with two rappers.’ No one’s going to pay to see a movie with two rappers? Okay. They’re the two biggest fucking pop stars in the world at that point! Eminem was going to get even bigger, X was at his peak right then. And 8 Mile, when it came out a year and a half later, had like a $35 million opening weekend or something. And that was a drama.”
Read the detailed story and learn more about the movie plot on Bloody Disgusting.
Joseph Kahn, who later filmed some of the most iconic Eminem music videos (“Without Me”, “Love The Way You Lie”, “Spacebound”) confirmed the info and shared the link to the article on his Twitter account.
