Author Chinua Achebe Forces 50 Cent To Rename ‘Things Fall Apart’ Movie

NigeriaTrends gathered that the foundation managing the works of renowned literary icon, ​Professor Chinua Achebe,​ won a fierce battle with the producers of the film, written and acted by ​Curtis ’50 Cent​’ Jackson, over intellectual property infringement.

Unfortunately, 50 Cent was not aware of this. He spent much of 2010 shooting a film of the same name, the story of an American football player diagnosed with cancer. “It’s a project that I wrote, produced and financed myself,” he explained last year. Directed by Mario Van Peebles, it premiered at the Miami film festival in March and is expected to be released soon.

When the news about the movie came out, the foundation wrote the movie producers to intimate them of an infringement bothering on a novel written by Achebe. But the producers took it with levity and offered to pay a miserable $1million (roughly N150million) to the literary giant because “50 Cent would rather want to keep the title,” in which Achebe, 80, took as an insult.​

However, the foundation’s lawyers categorically declined the offer and informed the producers that “​the novel (Achebe’s most famous work) with the said title was first produced in 1958 (17 years before 50 Cent was born), listed as the mostly widely read book in modern African literature, and will not be sold for even $1billion”.

Given the tough stance of Achebe’s legal representatives, the movie producers and the marketing company distributing the movie, ​Image Entertainment​, convinced 50Cent to change the title to ​All Things Fall Apart​, to avoid a potential huge loss if they have to settle for another title altogether.

Things Fall Apart, published by Achebe in 1958, is Nigeria’s most famous English-language novel. It has sold more than 8m copies worldwide.