Wesley Snipes Joins Eddie Murphy in Netflix's 'Dolemite Is My Name!' (Exclusive)

Mike Epps, Craig Robinson, Tituss Burgess and Da’Vine Joy Randolph also round out the Rudy Ray Moore biopic.

Wesley Snipes has joined Eddie Murphy in Dolemite Is My Name!, Netflix's biopic of envelope-pushing comedian and film producer Rudy Ray Moore.

Snipes leads a muscular roll call that also includes Mike Epps, Craig Robinson, Tituss Burgess and Da'Vine Joy Randolph as the film begins production this week in Los Angeles.

Craig Brewer, best known for directing Hustle & Flow, is behind the camera. Davis Entertainment's John Davis and John Fox are producing along with Murphy.

Moore is sometimes called the Godfather of Rap from his reciting raunchy, sexually explicit rhymes in his comedy, often depicting pimps, prostitutes, players and hustlers, according to his obituary in the Los Angeles Times. (He died in 2008.) The son of a sharecropper, he broke through in 1970s Hollywood when his underground records became popular in black communities.

He used the proceeds to produce and star in Dolemite, a notorious blaxploitation movie featuring a pimp with a harem of kung fu-fighting prostitutes. The film was an underground sensation.

Murphy is playing Moore.

Snipes is D'Urville Martin, an arrogant actor and alcoholic who ends up directing Dolemite.

Netflix will launch the movie in 2019. Michael Beugg is exec producing. Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winner Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, whose credits range from Ed Wood to American Crime Story: The People vs O.J. Simpson, wrote the script.

Snipes appeared in Spike Lee's last movie, Chi-Raq, with Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack. The actor is known for action movies such as the Blade trilogy, New Jack City and Passenger 57, as well as dramas White Men Can't Jump and Waiting to Exhale. He is repped by APA.

Burgess, who appears on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, is repped by APA, Soffer-Namoff Entertainment, and Piefodd Mahan.