The Snoop Dogg biopic has cast two of the men who shaped his earliest years. Universal's Snoop has added Algee Smith as Warren G and Tre Hale as Suge Knight, filling in the Long Beach and Death Row halves of the story around Jonathan Daviss, who plays the lead. The Hollywood Reporter confirmed Smith's casting on a Wednesday and Hale's a few hours later, and HotNewHipHop's Erika Marie wrote it up on August 27.
Warren G belongs to the part of the story that happens before the fame. He formed 213 with Snoop and Nate Dogg in Long Beach and made the introduction to his stepbrother Dr. Dre, a connection that led to Deep Cover, The Chronic and eventually Doggystyle in 1993. Smith has done this before, playing Ralph Tresvant in BET's The New Edition Story, with Detroit, Judas and the Black Messiah and Euphoria since.
Hale's role covers the harder end of the same rise. Knight co-founded Death Row Records, the label where Snoop made his name alongside Dre, and the relationship soured badly enough that Snoop left for No Limit Records in 1998.
The full-circle detail is that Snoop bought Death Row Records in 2022, which means he is now making a film about his own history with the company through his own production arm.
The rest of the cast is filling in around him. Myles Bullock plays Dr. Dre, Camron Jones plays Tupac Shakur, and Lauren London plays Snoop's late mother, Beverly Tate. Craig Brewer directs from his own rewrite of an original screenplay by Joe Robert Cole, with music drawn from Snoop's catalogue.
Snoop is producing alongside Death Row Pictures president Sara Ramaker and Imagine Entertainment's Brian Grazer, and Universal describes the film as the first project under Death Row Pictures' overall deal with NBCUniversal Entertainment and Studios. Production is expected to begin around Los Angeles in mid-September, with a cinema release set for August 6, 2027. We covered the release date when it was set and Camron Jones taking the Tupac role. More is on the hip-hop hub.
The facts
- Algee Smith will play Warren G and Tre Hale will play Suge Knight
- Jonathan Daviss stars as Snoop Dogg
- Craig Brewer directs from his rewrite of a Joe Robert Cole script
- Production is expected to start around Los Angeles in mid-September
- The film is scheduled for cinemas on August 6, 2027
- It is the first project under Death Row Pictures' NBCUniversal deal
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