Eddie Murphy Will Be Playing DC’s former Mayor Marion Barry In A Movie!

Eddie Murphy will be playing DC’s former Mayor, Marion Barry. HBO Films is developing an untitled television project. Spike Lee is attached to direct with John Ridley of (Red Tails, Da Brick) is billed to write the script. The Washington Post says Murphy, Lee and Ridley would all serve as executive producers as

Journalists Harry Jaffe and Tom Sherwood who wrote and book published Dream City detailing politics in D.C in 1994 will be consultants, along with The Nine Lives of Marion Barry filmmakers Dana Flor and Toby Oppenheimer.

He served as the D.C. mayor from 1979 to 1991 and again from 1995 to 1999, and is currently a member of the D.C. City Council representing the city's eighth ward. In January 1990, Barry was caught smoking crack cocaine at the Vista International Hotel in downtown and was arrested on drug charges, serving six months in prison.

Will the movie be able to capture and depict the complex relationship and romance of his with DC? I doubt that very much, because although Marion Shepilov Barry, Jr was born in Leflore County, Mississippi, and in 1965 moved to Washington, D.C. to open a local chapter of SNCC, he has shown that he is a loving, loyal and very beloved adopted son of DC in a relationship that is too complex and intricate to accurately decipher.

I hope the movie makers have enough sense and courtesy to contact him to inform him of their project and seek his assistance in making the movie, because regardless of what he has done, he is an average African American man doing what many of African American men do, the only difference between him and them is that they aren’t held under a mayoral microscope and he ultimately comes across as a nice, easy going, down to earth and charming man who cares about people.