The Snoop Dogg movie has found its Tupac, Biggie and Dre, and Biggie is the son of two soul legends

The Snoop Dogg movie now has the three faces it could not do without. Camron Jones will play Tupac Shakur, SwayvoTwain will play the Notorious B.I.G., and Myles Bullock will play Dr Dre in Snoop, Universal Pictures’ film about the Long Beach rapper’s rise, due in US cinemas on 6 August 2027.

The most striking name is SwayvoTwain. He is a rapper and the son of D’Angelo and Angie Stone, two of the defining voices of 1990s and 2000s soul, who both died in 2025. He plays Christopher Wallace, the Brooklyn rapper killed in Los Angeles in March 1997, six months after Tupac was shot dead in Las Vegas.

Who else is in it?

Jonathan Daviss, best known from Netflix’s Outer Banks, leads as Snoop. He was cast in 2025, and Snoop has been firm about the choice: “He’s a dynamic actor,” he said of him at the time.

Jones comes from the Amazon series Panic, and Bullock from the Starz drama BMF. Around them the film has built a cast that reads like a Death Row family tree:

• Cynthia Erivo as Afeni Shakur, Tupac’s mother
• Lauren London as Beverly Tate, Snoop’s mother
• Laya DeLeon Hayes as Shante Broadus, Snoop’s wife
• Zachariah Rogers as The D.O.C., the writer and mentor behind much of Dr Dre’s early work
• Tre Hale as Suge Knight, the label boss
• Hercy Miller as Master P, his own father, whose No Limit Records signed Snoop after he left Death Row

Erivo is the heaviest hitter: a Tony, Emmy and Grammy winner and two-time Oscar nominee who led both Wicked films. Casting her as Afeni Shakur suggests the film gives real weight to Tupac’s side of the story, not just Snoop’s.

Why does this film carry more weight than most music biopics?

Because Snoop is not just the subject; he is a producer and he owns the label. He bought Death Row Records in 2022, and Snoop is the first film under Death Row Pictures’ overall deal with NBCUniversal. Brian Grazer produces alongside him.

That gives the film unusual access to the music and the people, and it also means the story of 1990s West Coast rap, Death Row and the feud with Bad Boy that came before two of rap’s most infamous killings will be told by someone who was inside it. How it handles Suge Knight, who is serving a 28-year prison sentence over a 2015 fatal hit-and-run, will be watched closely.

Brewer has form with this world. Hustle & Flow (2005) turned a Memphis pimp’s rap dream into an Oscar for Three 6 Mafia’s song, and Dolemite Is My Name (2019) gave Eddie Murphy one of his best late-career roles.

Will it work at the box office?

The template is Straight Outta Compton, Universal’s 2015 film about N.W.A, which made more than US$200 million worldwide and put Dr Dre, Ice Cube and the young Snoop on screen. Snoop’s own story runs through the same years and beyond: his debut Doggystyle came out on Death Row in 1993 and went straight to No. 1 in the US.

For the cast, the risk is the one every music biopic faces: fans know these men’s voices, faces and walks by heart, and they will judge every frame.

When can Australians see it?

Universal has set 6 August 2027 for US cinemas. No Australian date has been announced; Universal’s big films usually reach Australian cinemas within days of the US release, so August 2027 is the likely window.