In some fairly bizarre news, information has surfaced that a new film is coming out, written by Alex Blagg and Neel Shah, and produced by Kevin Hart. It’s called Run The Jewels.
No, it’s not an RTJ documentary or film, it’s not based on their songs or lyrics, nothing like that. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “The film centers on a group of failed rappers who attempt to rob an eccentric hip-hop mogul.”
It comes as absolutely no surprise whatsoever, that Killer Mike and El-P aren’t too happy with this.
excuse me while I go starve a savage pack of lawyers for 7 days.
— el-p (@therealelp) June 21, 2016
https://twitter.com/KillerMike/status/745533784229978113?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
It’s pretty ridiculous that anyone thought they could make a film bearing the same title as one of the foremost acts in the industry right now, without anyone noticing or calling them out. I doubt anyone’s going to try and make a film called Kanye West or To Pimp A Butterfly or something like that, without anyone noticing the similarities. The copyright claims and potential trademark infringements are obvious and immediate to the point where it’s genuinely baffling. Even more so because it’s a film about hip-hop, and because it’s a major Hollywood film produced by Universal. It’s unquestionably true that the intended demographic of this film would certainly overlap with people who have heard of Run The Jewels; it’s not like the creative team behind the film had never hear of Run The Jewels, or that they did a quick Google search and didn’t notice the countless results about the hip-hop duo.
It’ll be interesting to see if this goes any further than a few tweets. We’ll make sure to update the story as it unfolds.
Image: Mass Appeal