Tupac Shakur's mother is firing back at independent production company Morgan Creek over the right to make a biopic about the late rapper. In a $10 million cross-complaint set to be filed Monday morning, Afeni Shakur's Amaru Entertainment claims that Morgan Creek, CEO James Robinson and others tried to strong-arm a deal for Tupac movie rights, then sabotaged the project when Amaru attempted to set it up elsewhere. “Instead of negotiating in good faith with (Amaru), they sought to obtain the rights by concocting a nonexistent ‘agreement' and engaging in heavy-handed threats, coercion and intimidation to interfere with and ultimately destroy the film project,” Amaru claims. Morgan Creek first filed a lawsuit last month in Los Angeles Superior Court claiming that Amaru, which controls the Tupac estate, backed out of a completed deal to sell life rights for a biopic about the slain rapper-actor. Now Amaru is seeking a court declaration that there never was a deal. Morgan Creek allegedly was one of several suitors for the project, among them Paramount, Fox Searchlight, Kennedy/Marshall and Brett Ratner's Rat Entertainment. But days after “Notorious,” a biopic about Tupac rival Biggie Smalls, grossed more than $20 million in its opening weekend January 16-18, Morgan Creek executives allegedly arranged a conference call with an Amaru attorney to “accept” the counteroffer and began telling other studios and producers that Morgan Creek owned rights to the project. “This was a sleazy and illegal ploy to coerce (Amaru) into a deal,” says the cross-complaint, which demands millions in damages for derailing talks with potential studios and producers. The legal move is not unexpected. At the time of the Morgan Creek filing, Amaru and its lawyer Skip Miller told The Hollywood Reporter that they promised to countersue for “millions” in damages.
