The Weinstein Company’s high-profile biopic of comedian Richard Pryor has lost director Lee Daniels due to scheduling issues over the filmmaker’s Fox TV projects, TheWrap has learned.
TWC, which also released Daniels’ “The Butler,” has begun approaching other directors for the gig, which it hopes to take into production this October for release in 2017.
But a source close to the production indicated that that timetable proved too aggressive for Daniels, whose schedule is spread pretty thin as executive producer on Fox’s primetime hit “Empire” as well as on a second network project called “Star.”
A representative for the Weinstein Company declined to comment.
Mike Epps is still attached to star as the legendary comedian who rose to fame as a cutting-edge stand-up in the 1970s before crossing over into mainstream Hollywood movies until a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease cut short his career. Oprah Winfrey is on board to play his grandmother, and Kate Hudson will portray his wido
Daniels had been attached to the project for at least two years, but it has been in development since before the time of Pryor’s death in 2005.
Bill Condon wrote the latest version of the script, titled “Richard Pryor: Is It Something I Said?”