Mark Wahlberg wants to make basketball drama for "the white Tupac," Justin Bieber
Rapidly aging golden child Justin Bieber has approximately three years left before his Lifeclock turns black, so he’s hoping to reborn in the fiery ritual of Carousel that is movie stardom. As we reported earlier, Bieber’s transition into lesser, non-Bieber roles could well be shepherded by Ashton Kutcher—who wants to split America’s ladies with Bieber in some sort of time-travel comedy—but now it looks like another former teen idol is making a bid to ensure Bieber doesn’t become the 21st century’s Leif Garrett.
Deadline reports that Mark Wahlberg is currently developing a basketball drama that he describes as “The Color Of Money meets The Karate Kid,” despite the fact that it’s about basketball, one that would find Bieber playing a tough street ball hustler who uses his moves on the court to battle his way out of the inner city. It’s sort of like Bieber’s own never-say-never story, only replace “tough street ball hustler” with “pop singer” and “skills on the court” with “Usher” and “inner city” with “Canada,” but keep the dudes who want to beat him up. Wahlberg was apparently struck by the idea after witnessing Bieber play in the NBA’s recent celebrity game during All-Star Game weekend, where Bieber was named MVP for his hustle and the aggressive way he took Tyronn Lue up under the boards, then sunk a jumper with only 43 seconds left in overtime. No, wait, that was Allen Iverson in 2001. Well, it was probably something like that. And truthfully, Bieber's got some skills:
By the way, this isn’t the first time Wahlberg has gone on record as being impressed by Bieber: Last year he was quoted as saying, “Justin Bieber is like the white Tupac. Compared to a lot of people.” In that same sense, this film will basically be the black Hoosiers, compared to, say, Nanny McPhee.