N.W.A. biopic gets mostly attitude-less writer behind World Trade Center

That long-gestating biopic about N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton, finally has a writer: Andrea Berloff, best known for her work on Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center, will tackle the story of the gangsta rap pioneers whose turn-ons included chicks in bicycle shorts and machine gun sound effects and whose turn-offs were stupid motherfuckers, both in and out of blue uniforms. Berloff, as The Hollywood Reporter notes, is a white woman, making her part of a “recent trend” of hiring white people to tackle “black-themed projects,” but we’re all post-racial now, so whatever. What’s even more interesting is that the film is being co-produced by Ice Cube—but since Eazy-E’s widow, Tomica Woods, is also overseeing the project, we’re guessing that means we won’t see any scenes of Eazy-E and Jerry Heller swapping sexual favors while rolling around in a pile of purloined N.W.A. royalties. But however they handle it, that infighting is definitely a big part of the N.W.A. story, and it’s one worth telling if done honestly; here’s hoping Berloff manages to shelve the reductive sentimental streak she displayed in World Trade Center, which should help her avoid going down the Notorious/Too Legit:The MC Hammer Story route toward yet another VHI-style docudrama, which is the last thing we need. And if it is, well, at least we’ll always have this, the unofficial N.W.A. story.