Kendrick Lamar & Trey Parker’s First Film Collabo Sounds Bonkers
Photo Credit: JC Olivera/WireImage
pgLang co-founders Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free are bringing their multidimensional visions to the screen. A currently-untitled film they’re set to produce will be directed by South Park co-creator Trey Parker, with Vernon Chatman as the scriptwriter.
According to Above the Line, “Chatman’s script finds the past and present coming to a head when a young Black man who is interning as a slave reenactor at a living history museum discovers that his white girlfriend’s ancestors once owned his.”
Per a press release, production for the film begins this spring via Paramount Pictures. The film will be available to stream on Paramount+. “On behalf of Paramount Pictures and the wider ViacomCBS family, we look forward to ushering in the first theatrical collaboration from these creative visionaries, and galvanizing audiences worldwide around a powerful storytelling experience,” Brian Robbins, president & CEO, Paramount Pictures, said in a statement last January.
Although the upcoming feature marks the full-length pgLang directorial debut, Lamar last collaborated with Parker and Stone’s production company, Park County, for “The Heart Part 5” deepfake visual. The song, which preceded Lamar’s fifth studio album Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers, won in the Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance categories at the 2023 Grammy Awards in February.
Lamar’s last brush with acting was short film “We Cry Together,” co-starring actress Taylour Paige.
“The crazy part about this joint is that it started with the film first and the music — putting it on the actual album — came after,” Lamar said during a private screening with Free and actress Tessa Thompson in November. “The idea was always to capture this writing, not no song, [but] the writing and the film and the texture and the cinematography of it in order to get the full experience out.”