Time Warner plans Tupac Shakur film

Time Warner, whose Warner Records refused to release albums by Tupac Shakur and other Death Row Records artists, has agreed to make a movie about the late rapper’s life under its HBO Pictures banner.

The made-for-TV movie, titled “Rebel for the Hell of It: The Life of Tupac Shakur,” will be based on a book by Armond White.

Last year, amid a political fury over rap lyrics, Time Warner dumped Death Row Records distributor Interscope Records, which was sold to MCA this year. Time Warner even cut a deal to manufacture Shakur’s “All Eyez On Me” album as long as the entertainment giant’s name didn’t appear on the record.

Now that the 25-year-old artist is dead--after being gunned down in early September in Las Vegas--apparently it’s OK to capitalize on his life with an HBO movie.

An HBO spokesman said: “Doing a movie about the subject matter is not the same as putting out the work. . . . We’ve done films about Nazi Germany . . . that doesn’t mean we condone it or support it.”