Johnny Depp is to take on his first post-divorce movie project by starring in the forthcoming Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. as a police detective who investigated the unsolved murders of the two rap stars.

The Hollywood Reporter indicates that 53 year old Depp is attached to the project to play Russell Poole, the LAPD detective who investigated the slayings of the East and West Coast rap giants in LAbyrinth, a film to be directed by Brad Furman (of The Lincoln Letter) and whose release date is as yet unconfirmed.

Johnny DeppJohnny Depp is to play LAPD detective Russell Poole, who investigated the high-profile murders in 1997

Poole spent several months investigating the killing of Notorious B.I.G. (real name Christopher Wallace) in 1997. His work eventually led him to conclude that rogue officers within his own force, with supposed connections to Death Row Records and the Bloods street gang, were involved in the shooting.

Having conducted an internal battle with his superiors at the LAPD, Poole eventually took early retirement in protest at corruption within the force.

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His theory was eventually used by Biggie’s mother, Voletta Wallace, in a case brought against the city of Los Angeles in 2005, which was eventually dismissed five years later.

Since then, Poole’s findings were challenged in 2006 by another LAPD detective, Greg Kading, who concluded that the gangs themselves were most likely responsible for the murder, rather than corrupt officers.

The screenplay for the project has been written by Christian Contreras, and was adapted from Randall Sullivan's novel ‘LAbyrinth: A Detective Investigates the Murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., the Implication of Death Row Records' Suge Knight, and the Origins of the Los Angeles Police Scandal’.

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