We announced 2 days ago that screenwriter Michael Starrbury, who penned the screenplay for George Tillman Jr's The Invevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete (making its debut at Sundance) has been hired by Morgan Creek Productions to rewrite the script for their Tupac Shakur biopic. 

Starrbury is apparently an up and coming writer in demand, because, what we failed to previously report, likely because we weren't familiar with his name (and it's rare for writers to have their faces published in reports), is that Starrbury is also currently working on an adaptation of an Image comic book, The Great Unknown, which Jorma Taccone, director of Saturday Night Live digital shorts and the feature MacGruber, is attached to direct.

To be produced by Mark Gordon and Jennifer Todd, the action-comedy comic centers on…

… a slacker with delusions of grandeur who believes his so-called great ideas are popping up elsewhere. After failing to convince his friends and family that his mind is being pilfered, he goes on a quest to solve the mystery behind the idea thefts.

I'm interested, based on that description alone.

Although the first director's name that came to me when I read that synopsis was Michel Gondry.

The comic, published in 2009 and 2010, was written and drawn by Duncan Rouleau.

But that's not all for Starrbury. He was also previously tapped to re-write Fully Automatic, a buddy action movie set up at Warner Bros, which centers on two smart-mouthed rookie cops who team up with a female Delta Force operative to stop a mercenary who's stolen some weapons.

Apparently, Starrbury's break came when his script for The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete got George Tillman Jr's attention. 

He also made the coveted Black List in 2011, with a script titled Watch Roger Do His Thing, about a retired hitman who's roped back in for one last job. No word on whether this one is set up at any studio or production company right now.

So, now that we're aware of Michael Starrbury, you can be sure that we'll be watching him much closer from here-on. 

There are likely many black writers working in Hollywood right now, that we're just not aware of, since writers rarely get the kind of publicity actors and directors do – unless you're one of these superstar writers. So I continue to ask that, if you're one of them, or you know any black writers that we haven't given any coverage to, please let us know!