The Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA is teaming with Brad Pitt’s Plan B and Netflix to develop and produce a new dramatic feature film which will retell the story of how the Wu-Tang Clan’s one-of-a-kind 2014 album, “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” ended up in the hands of the notorious pharma-bro Martin Shkreli. The film will share the same title as the aforementioned album.
In 2015, Wu-Tang Clan put the sole copy of “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” – which is their seventh studio album and was silently produced over the course of six years – up for public auction. Shortly after, a deal was struck between Wu-Tang Clan and Shkreli, who reportedly purchased the album for around $2 million. Separately, after the album’s sale was completed, Shkreli boosted the price of the antiparasitic drug Daraprim, which naturally tainted the historic sale.
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The Wu-Tang Clan has since regretted the whole ordeal, namely after Shkreli attempted to sell the album on eBay. Regardless, the whole deal is effectively a wash now, since the album has been confiscated from Shkreli by the federal government in 2018, after he was convicted for securities fraud.
As reported by Collider, the film will be a dramatic retelling of the sale, including “the auction for Wu-Tang Clan’s seventh studio album and its aftermath.” The film will be directed by Paul Downs Colaizzo, who found significant success at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival with his directorial debut “Brittany Runs a Marathon,” which was picked up by Amazon. Ian Edelman (“How to Make It in America”) penned the script.
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In a recent interview with Yahoo, RZA reflected on the sale, citing that it allowed him to reconsider the value of material items, as well as the abstract concept of value as a whole. “The album has now taken on the life of its own… It started a conversation for us to look at what we value and don’t value. I even think now is more unique, like, ‘what’s valuable and what’s not valuable?’ That question has got to be in all of our heads right now.”
With that idea, RZA offers a remarkable, recontextualized perspective on the whole ‘Shaolin’ saga. If done correctly, we could be in for an awfully thoughtful and entertaining picture. Until then, we’ll await further development news.
