Fresh from telling the Golden Globes to suck a dick after being snubbed for his work on the Starz series Power, rapper-actor Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson has snagged a role in an upcoming crime thriller called Den Of Thieves. Directed and co-written by Christian Gudegast (whose screenplay credits include London Has Fallen), the project will star Gerard Butler, who also serves as one of the film’s producers. It’s set to start shooting in Atlanta on January 9. The plot, according to Deadline, concerns “an elite unit of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and the state’s most successful bank robbery crew as they plan a seemingly impossible heist on the Federal Reserve Bank of downtown Los Angeles.” Sounds like fun. Jackson is slated to play a member of the gang.
Between Power and Den Of Thieves, it looks like Jackson’s long-suffering acting career could finally be thriving after more than a decade. Back in 2005, the semi-autobiographical Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ directed by Jim Sheridan was supposed to be 50 Cent’s 8 Mile. But then, sadly for everyone involved, it wasn’t. Jackson got pretty dismal reviews, and the film underperformed at the box office. Did 50 Cent give up? He did not. Instead, with a stubbornness to rival Madonna’s, he kept appearing in films throughout the 2000s and 2010s, generally crime dramas like Dead Man Running and Caught In the Crossfire. And his persistence has paid off in recent years, with roles in Southpaw, Escape Plan, and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. Den Of Thieves could be the next important step in that delvopment.