'Definitive' Snoop Dogg Biopic Movie in the Works — Will Be Told 'in His Own Words'

Dave Bjerke/NBC

Snoop Dogg's life is coming to the big screen.

On Wednesday, Universal Pictures announced that it is "developing the definitive biopic" of the 51-year-old "entertainment industry mogul and icon of gangsta rap."

The upcoming film will incorporate music from Snoop's 30-year career, for which he has received 17 Grammy nominations and frequently collaborated with another Los Angeles rap icon, Dr. Dre, who first featured Snoop on his debut solo single "Deep Cover" in 1992 and again on his solo album The Chronic.

Joe Robert Cole, who cowrote the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever with Ryan Coogler, will write the screenplay, while filmmaker Allen Hughes (Dear Mama, HBO's The Defiant Ones) will direct the movie, according to a release.

"I waited a long time to put this project together because I wanted to choose the right director, the perfect writer, and the greatest movie company I could partner with that could understand the legacy that I'm trying to portray on screen, and the memory I'm trying to leave behind," Snoop, who will also produce the project, said in a statement Wednesday.

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"It was the perfect marriage," he added in the statement. "It was holy matrimony, not holy macaroni."

Dave Bjerke/NBC

The movie will make for the first film from Snoop's new production company Death Row Pictures, born from record label Death Row Records, which the rapper purchased in February.

Universal chairman Donna Langley said in a statement Wednesday that she "had the opportunity to hear [Snoop's] story in his own words" when they met some time after Snoop acquired Death Row Records.

"We are humbled to be able to create the lasting document of this singular artist," Langley added in the statement.

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In a statement Wednesday, screenwriter Cole said "the humanity of Snoop's journey to international icon" is what excites him most about embarking on the project, while director Hughes added there is "just something about his energy that brings people of all walks of life together.

Courtesy of Universal Pictures

Universal Pictures also produced 2015's Straight Outta Compton, a biopic about influential rap group N.W.A. that featured LaKeith Stanfield's portrayal of Snoop in a cameo role. Corey Hawkins (In The Heights) costarred as Dr. Dre in that film.

The company did not announce who will portray Snoop in the upcoming biopic.

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In May 2021, Snoop told Yahoo! that he was working on a biographical project that he described as "the 'Snoop Dogg anthology,' the life story of Snoop Dogg," and did not necessarily envision as a movie at the time.

"[The project would follow] me being the 'Black Forest Gump,' so to speak, seeing me in all of these highlighted moments in American history," Snoop told the outlet of his plans at the time.