Straight Outta Compton earned an impressive $4.96 million after playing on 2,264 screens Thursday, and with the biopic about iconic rap group N.W.A playing on 2,755 North American screens Friday, early box office forecasts an opening weekend of more than $40 million, Variety reports.
Directed by F. Gary Gray, the film has received positive reviews, with an 87 percent “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Compton cost around $29 million to shoot, and was produced by original N.W.A members Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, along with Gray, Tomica Woods-Wright (Eazy-E’s wife), Matt Alvarez, and Scott Bernstein. Corey Hawkins stars as Dr. Dre, Jason Mitchell gives a dynamic performance as the late Eazy-E and O’Shea Jackson Jr. “duplicates his father’s swag,” as a previous Inquisitr article reports.
Despite an increase in police presence at theaters for Thursday night’s opening of Straight Outta Compton, and reports of several theaters across the nation enhancing security out of fear that scenes of gang violence and humiliating police brutality could stir emotions, no reports of violence at screenings have been reported so far.
Eazy-E’s daughter, E.B. Wright, recently chatted with City Pages about what she remembers from her childhood with her dad, and she shared her thoughts about Eazy’s portrayal in Straight Outta Compton. E.B. was four when Eazy died of AIDS-related pneumonia (at age 31), and recalls the age she became aware of her father’s cultural impact and musical influence.
“I remember in elementary school around eight and nine-year-old, I remember playing on the playground and the people that would watch you, they would hear that my dad was Eazy E. That’s when I started realizing his impact, and people were big fans. That’s when I started realizing he wasn’t just ‘Dad’ anymore, he was Eazy E.”
E.B. also revealed that her mother hid nothing from her concerning Eazy, especially after his death. She was even allowed to listen to her father’s violent, disparaging lyrics.
“She didn’t hide anything from me. She was young and fun. I heard everything, all the explicit lyrics, and when you’re young you don’t understand it anyway. She was in the business, she was younger than my dad, and especially after his passing, I don’t think she wanted to keep anything away from me. I don’t think anything’s ever been hidden from me.”
Eazy E, Jason Mitchell – Michele Poorman/Instagram: jasonmitchellactor
After Eazy’s death, his label, Ruthless Records, was taken over by his wife Tomica Wright, who serves as a producer on Straight Outta Compton. E.B. expressed her appreciation for the way Dre and Ice Cube handled her father’s legacy.
“I was concerned, but not mainly with N.W.A., but more concerned with the Eazy E story in the movie. But Cube and Dre and F. Gary Gray, the director, they did a good job to me. They’re very sensitive with my dad’s storyline and don’t really get much into his personal life. They keep it on the surface and keep it about the group and their brotherhood, how they got started, what they all went though. I was really proud of Jason Mitchell and how he portrayed my dad.”
Twenty-five-year-old E.B. is hoping to carve her own path in the music biz. She has a new EP, We Want E.B., coming out in late September, check out her latest music video below. The singer is also working on a documentary about father. In the meantime, she posted on Twitter that she’s planning a “group trip” to see Straight Outta Compton, in theaters nationwide August 14.
???? Tonight is the night! Straight Outta Compton in theaters now. Doing a group trip to the movies… https://t.co/az4CD5PQJn
