Thug Life Army

LA based Bandit Films, a division of Auteur Filmworks, Inc., has optioned the Holloway House action/adventure novel Spinning Target: Iceman 5 by Joe Nazel, and plans to put it on the big screen with a screen adaptation by Bandit Films founder and CEO Darrin Monroe. “We at Bandit Films are proud to be working with Holloway House. We feel this is the beginning of a long lasting business relationship,” says Monroe. He is also listed as co-producer and director on the project.

“It’s about a cool, rich black guy who can kill one minute and love the next,” says Holloway House editor Leonard King. “He goes after West Coast killers and their underground entertainment company - kind of like Death Row Records meets The Spy Who Loved Me.”

Bandit Films President Lisa M. Neal is co-producing the project. “We do have a wish list for the cast that includes Jamie Foxx, Sam Jackson, Alicia Keyes, James Woods, Michael Clarke Duncan and a few others,” comments Neal. “We’ll see how things work themselves out.” Additional personnel include Music Supervisors La Vonna Erby and AJ Pavel. Erby was formerly with Geffen and Interscope Records and Pavel has managed many top music acts. Between them they’ve worked with Beyoncé, 50Cent, west coast hip-hop and rap icon Tupac Shakur (2Pac), The Luniz, Martin Lawrence and the beautiful songstress Mary J. Blige.

Bandit recently produced ‘Rhythm and Youth’, a youth targeted ‘Access Hollywood’ type pilot and has worked on music videos with hip-hop and rap artists and labels including Xzhbit, The Luniz, E-40, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and hip-hop and rap artists on the rise, Dem Hoodstarz, Virgin Records, Warner Bros., Def Jam Recordings and many others.

Spinning Target is the third Holloway House novel optioned in Hollywood this year, following a recent acquisition of Iceberg Slim’s Mama Black Widow and the option of ‘Slim’s Pimp: The Story of My Life’ by rapper Pras. Last year, hip-hop rap artist and actor DMX starred in the major motion picture adaptation of Holloway House author Donald Goines’ Never Die Alone, directed by Ernest Dickerson, distributed by Fox Searchlight and now available on cable and DVD.

Hollywood does love Holloway. Hip-hop rap artists like Ice T, Snoop Dog and Ja Rule starred in the recent DVD release of Goines’ novel, Crime Partners. Academy Award winning actress Halle Berry co-produced and starred in the 1999 HBO movie Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, based on a Holloway House biography by Earl Mills. In the late 1970s, Iceberg Slim’s novel Trick Baby was released as a feature film by Universal and is currently available on DVD.