There’s no denying that Ava DuVernay is one of the hardest working directors today. Even before she broke out with her 2014 film “Selma,” but especially after, DuVernay has helmed everything from documentaries, big-budget blockbusters, and TV episodes. And even though she has a TV series in the works (“DMZ”) and that DC superhero film in development (“New Gods”), the filmmaker is also finding time to direct a new documentary about the recently-deceased rapper Nipsey Hussle.
According to THR, Netflix has won a bidding war for the rights to a new documentary about Nipsey Hussle that is set to be directed by the Oscar-nominated filmmaker Ava DuVernay. Hussle, whose real name was Ermias Joseph Asghedom, was fatally shot in March of last year. In addition to his musical career, the artist had become a major community activist, hoping to prevent gang violence in his native South Los Angeles. He was recently the subject of a tribute at the Grammy Awards, where DuVernay introduced the segment.
The report claims that Netflix beat out streamers Amazon and Apple for the rights to the documentary, which apparently earned a deal in the “teen millions” range. It makes sense that Netflix would want to pursue the DuVernay-directed doc, as the platform has had a strong relationship with the filmmaker in the past. Most recently, DuVernay teamed with the streaming service for the acclaimed limited series “When They See Us,” and before that, Netflix released the Oscar-nominated documentary “13th.”
No word on when we might see the Nipsey Hussle doc get released. As mentioned, DuVernay is pretty busy working on “DMZ” and “New Gods.” So, it could be a bit of time before we see the doc hit the streaming service. But when it does, you better believe we’ll be checking it out.
