50 Cent made as big of a splash on the television industry as he did with music thanks to his Power franchise. But the television series he had planned after Power might surprise some fans.
50 Cent had his sights set on making his own superhero show
50 Cent spent years planning to enter the space of television before finally making his move with Power. The hip hop mogul teamed with producer Courtney Kemp to bring the series to life, which drew inspiration from his own background. His networking with a well-known Hollywood producer also helped put the wheels in motion for the show.
“This project actually started in the SOHO House with me and Mark Canton,” 50 Cent once told Vibe. “Mark is an actual producer of 300. He’s brought you so many hits I can run through a line…Bad Boys, The Bone Collector, Krush Groove, the Prince movies, Purple Rain….a lot of hit material. So I actually sat with him and we talked about developing this project. And he actually made the connection between me and Courtney Kemp [Agboh] of The Good Wife. Following that, me and Courtney ran with the ball. We got together and started developing with concepts and ideas for the actual show. It came all the way together.”
Power grew to be the Starz network’s flagship show, spawning an entire cinematic universe in its own right. But after the success of Power, 50 Cent considered taking over the world of superheroes as well. According to Entertainment Weekly, he’d even given his new show a title.
“I am looking forward to continuing my relationship with my Starz family, we have had great success together on Power and I am excited to get going on all of our upcoming projects together,” 50 Cent said. “I knew Starz would be the perfect home for Tomorrow, Today. This project is very personal to me … creating it, writing it, finding the best team for it and I will continue to be involved every step of the way.”
According to the show’s pitch, the superhero would’ve been born from a human experiment gone awry.
“A veteran from the south side of Chicago, after being falsely imprisoned, becomes the personal experiment of a mad prison doctor trying to create the perfect man – and an unstoppable killing machine. Set free, but on the run, the veteran must reconcile with the world that has turned against him, and use his newfound abilities for good,” the publication reported.
50 Cent hoped to one day play a Marvel bad guy
Tomorrow, Today was never realized, and 50 Cent chose to focus on Power and other television shows he produced like For Life. But at one point, 50 Cent was still interested in entering the superhero space. He’s even done business with Marvel in the past, working with the conglomerate to further expand his SMS audio headphones.
“Those brands don’t go anywhere,” 50 cent once told MTV News. “They’re not going away.”
But his team asserted that, despite the Marvel make-up, SMS would maintain its grit.
“It won’t look toy-like,” SMS president Brian Nohe said. “All that stuff we do, it’s classy. Like on The Avengers’ headphones, it won’t be a picture of Thor running around. It will be a little symbol, and have the same colorways.”
But 50 Cent didn’t want his relationship with Marvel to stop with SMS. He entertained the idea of playing a Marvel role himself one day.
“[I want to be] a Marvel superhero,” he said. “But I want to be a bad guy…I want to be a bad-bad guy, the kind that you start to like.”
