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      *Looks like the long-planned biopic about late funk pioneer Rick James is finally becoming a reality. A Texas-based businessman is financing the project, and screenwriter Sheldon Turner (“The Longest Yard”) has signed on to pen the script, reports Variety.

      The project has no studio attached, but Texas-based entrepreneur John Farbes will serve as an executive producer, alongside Turner and Mark Gill. Jennifer Klein will produce through her Apartment 3B Productions Banner with Patrick Aluise of Aluise Entertainment.

      Klein and Turner have been trying to get James’ story in theaters since a Warner Independent Pictures executive gave them 400 pages of a memoir that James wrote before his death in 2004. When Gill left WIP, the studio lost interest in the project. But Klein and Turner were still looking to take it on.

      They worked with James’ estate to secure a rights package that includes that unpublished manuscript and a catalog of his hit songs, including "Super Freak" and "Give It to Me Baby."

      Turner has no intention of writing the typical rags-to-riches-to-drugs music biopic. The James estate wasn’t interested in that type of story either, which ultimately halted a proposed Paramount project several years ago that reportedly piqued the interest of Dave Chappelle.      

      Turner said James' memoir (the estate would like to get the book published when the movie's made) was rich with the story of a gifted musician who married funk, rock and sex and partied with just about everyone, "from Jim Morrison to princes to Prince, another singer he feuded with because Rick felt he'd ripped off his act," Turner said.