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'Hustle & Flow' sells to Paramount Pictures for a whooping $9.5 million

MEMPHISRAP.COM

Memphis, TN (MemphisRap.com) -- Director and Memphis' own Craig Brewer's Hustle & Flow film was alarmingly popular at it's recent Sundance Film Festival debut. The movie won the Dramatic Audience Award and sold for the biggest purchase ever at the film festival to Paramount Pictures for a whooping $9.5 million in conjunction with its Viacom sibling MTV Films.

Ludacris said it best when he broke the big news midway through his performance at a packed club last week: "Let's hear it for 'Hustle & Flow. We made it for $2 million and just sold it for $9 million."

"All I had to hear was that John Singleton was doing a movie in the South - that's it, I was down," Ludacris said also last week in a statement to MTV News.

In "Hustle & Flow," Luda plays a dirty South rapper by the name of Skinny Black who inspires a Memphis pimp "Glitter," "Ray" (played by actor Terrence Howard, pictured in article) in his hometown to attempt a career change to hip-hop.

MORE ON CRAIG BREWER

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This story circulated on the hip-hop newsgroups and reached the archive on February 19, 2005. It is reproduced as posted — headlines, typos and all. Original source, as credited in the post: MemphisRap.com.