Mike Epps has emerged as the frontrunner to play Richard Pryor in the upcoming biopic.

After a great screen test Mike Epps has jumped ahead to play Richard Pryor, getting ahead of Michael B. Jordan, Nick Cannon, and Marlon Wayans.

Looking back over Mike Epps filmography I haven’t seen him in a movie since 2002’s Friday After Next.  I thought he was funny in Friday After Next, All About the Benjamins (2002), and How High (2001).  Those movies are clearly old and I’ve only seen a few of his stand up specials and found him to be only kinda funny.

Epps clearly knows comedy and won’t be relying on  his own comedic chops if he wins out and lands the role of Richard Pryor.  I’d have to assume there’d be some strong writing and story telling to capture one of the best comedians of all time.

After blowing away everybody with his audition, actor-comic Mike Epps has emerged as the front-runner to star as Richard Pryor in the biopic that Lee Daniels will direct at The Weinstein Company. Daniels has been in TWC headquarters working with and auditioning a group of young actors that has included Epps, Michael B. Jordan, Marlon Wayans, and Nick mike eppsCannon, with Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway the names I’ve heard to play Pryor’s widow, Jennifer Lee Pryor. I can only imagine what it must mean to several of these guys to get the role and play the stand-up comedian they grew up revering before they themselves succeeded onstage. It’s especially poignant for Epps and Wayans, because each one was signed to play Pryor in prior incarnations of the movie that fell apart.

The Pryors had been through previous incarnations of the film, one of which was to star Damon Wayans, the brother of Marlon. They went with Epps because they wanted an actor who hadn’t yet been stamped as a big star. Pryor, who by then was wheelchair bound from multiple sclerosis, died in 2005 and his widow kept getting her heart broken when each version of the movie built momentum and then fell apart.

Things didn’t go much better right after for Epps, who moved on and played sewer worker Ed Norton opposite Cedric the Entertainer’s Ralph Kramden in a rather unwise remake of The Honeymooners. But it sure looks like Daniels and TWC are going to make this movie. Back when Epps was hired the first time, “The material is larger than life, and you need someone to fit into it who’s not extraordinarily famous or else it would be like Al Jolson playing Malcolm X,” Jennifer told me. “Richard and I saw Mike’s stand-up, and there is a dangerous edge, a Richard-esque quality about him.”

I’m intrigued to see Epps as Pryor and I hope his amazing audition wins him this role because I’d love to see how Epps and Lee Daniels will bring Pryor to the big screen.

Source: Deadline