Eminem Boxing Movie Close to Landing ‘Training Day’ Director Antoine Fuqua

Eminem’s first movie since 8 Mile is one step closer to happening.

Southpaw, a boxing movie set up at DreamWorks with Eminem attached to star, has been on the hunt for a director and now looks to be zeroing on Antoine Fuqua, best known for his helming Training Day.

The director, who is currently shooting a biopic in China centering on concubine Yang Guifei, is in talks to board the pugilist picture, which is hoping for a fall start. If a deal makes, it will put Eminem before cameras for the fist time since his 2002 semi-biopic, for which he received good reviews.

The Southpaw script by Kurt Sutter tells of a welterweight champ who punches his way back to glory after a tragedy.

The studio picked up the project in December when another boxing movie, The Fighter, was burning up the box office and awards season buzz.

Alan and Peter Riche are producing Southpaw along with Sutter. Stuart Parr, Paul Rosenberg and Peter Schiff are exec producing.

Fuqua is repped by CAA and Anonymous Content. The news was first reported on an LA Times blog.