MANILA, Philippines – From producer Sean “P Diddy” Combs comes Fox Searchlight’s musical drama Notorious starring Derek Luke, Angela Bassett and introducing Jamal Woolard. The movie will be shown exclusively at Ayala Malls Cinemas (Glorietta 4 & Greenbelt 3) today.
Notorious charts the remarkable rise of Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace — who, in just a few short years, shot from the tough streets of Brooklyn to the heights of hip-hop legend.
The story follows the young Biggie (portrayed by Wallace’s real-life son Christopher Jordan Wallace as a youngster and Woolard as an adult) from his surprising youth as a Catholic school honor student whose proud mother (Bassett) tries to keep him off the street corners to his years as a tough teenage drug dealer, and then to his life-changing move into young fatherhood, as his girlfriend Jan (Julia Pace Mitchell) gives birth to his daughter, prompting him to go on a mission to provide for his child by any means — legal or not. But everything changes when a “freestyle” rap tape that Biggie created just for fun ends up with B.I.G. Daddy Kane’s DJ Mister Cee (Edwin Freeman), and eventually in the hands of ambitious rap impresario Sean “Puffy” Combs (Luke), whose marketing savvy and production genius transform Biggie into a sensation.
Now, with his career taking off into superstar territory, Biggie finds himself with “mo’ money, mo’ problems” and is under all kinds of new pressures. His managers, Wayne Barrow (C. Malik Whitfield) and Mark Pitts (Kevin Phillip), attempt to keep the young man’s feet on the ground and mind in the studio, as he juggles the demands of recording, fatherhood and marriage to fellow Bad Boy artist Faith Evans (Antonique Smith) not to mention his complicated friendship with fellow Junior M.A.F.I.A. member Kimberly “Lil’ Kim” Jones (Naturi Naughton) and the increasingly heated rivalry with West Coast rapper Tupac Shakur (Anthony Mackie.)
Notorious is distributed by Twentieth Century Fox through Warner Bros.