Writer/director Bill Condon, who just completed his debut run as producer of the 2009 Academy Awards, is shopping his script Richard Pryor: Is It Something I Said? to the studio subsidiaries and independent distributors around town. Eddie Murphy is attached to star. Sources tell EW.com that Fox Searchlight, the studio behind this year's big Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire, is interested in the film. The studio, which declined comment, has a relationship with Condon, having partnered with the director on his 2004 feature Kinsey. Condon, who most recently wrote and directed Dreamgirls, had the Pryor biopic set up at The Weinstein Company but was able to pull it out when the indie outfit put it into turnaround. He initially was hoping to secure $30 million to produce the film, but that number, sources say, has dropped down to $25 million. Murphy, who has featured Pryor impersonations in his act as far back as the 1987 concert movie Raw, seems a likely choice for this role.

HitFix confirmed today that Eddie Murphy is attached to play legendary comedian Richard Pryor in the new drama "Richard Pryor: Is It Something I Said?" for Oscar-winning writer and director Bill Condon.

Originally developed with The Weinstein Company, Condon and producer Mark Gordon were able to free it up in turnaround and have shopped it to different studios. Paramount Pictures was close to securing the project, but Fox Searchlight recently stepped in after having no qualms with the film's $25 million budget.

Condon previously worked with the Searchlight team on "Kinsey" and Paramount was a co-financier on the $100 million hit "Dreamgirls." While setting up "Pryor," he spent the past few months as executive producer of last Sunday's 81st Academy Awards.

Murphy, who featured impersonations of Pryor in his early stand up routines and cast him in his own directorial effort, "Harlem Nights," is said to be enthusiastic about playing his longtime idol and has dropped his usual salary requirements for the role.

The script also features prominent roles for Pryor's four wives and Red Foxx. Those roles have not been cast as of yet. Additionaly, the film's title will likely change before release.

Pryor was a groundbreaking comedian who found success on the stage, on screen and won five Grammy Awards for his concert albums. At that height of his career he also suffered from drug addiction and in 1980 accidentally set himself on fire while freebasing cocaine and drinking 151 proof alcohol. This darker side of his life was chronicled in Pryor's fictionalized biopic "Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling," but this new film is said to depict the events more realistically. Pryor died in 2005 at the age of 65 after suffering a heart attack and a long battle with multiple sclerosis.

Murphy, who received his first Oscar nomination for his portrayal of James "Thunder" Early" in "Dreamgirls," has two comedies in the can for release this year, the recently retitled "Imagine That" and "A Thousand Words."

Condon is looking to start production this summer for a 2010 release.

Hm, Loyal, sorry, but Murphy was actually the 4th-best nominee that year at best. He wasn't even in the same stratosphere as Jackie Earle Haley. Alan Arkin topped him by quite a bit too and Mark Wahlberg was ahead as well.