He’s played a drug dealer, a gun runner and a corrupt detective. He even played a character loosely based on himself. Now Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson once again returns to film in a role rarely attempted by hip hop moguls: a cancer-stricken college football player.

Making its world broadcast premiere this Saturday on BET, All Things Fall Apart has been receiving generous amounts of praise from the media for Jackson’s drastically different role. Mario Van Peebles, who directed and starred in the movie, told BET.com back in September, “He [50 Cent] really has a natural sense for acting.”

All Things Fall Apart revolves around Deon (Jackson), a promising college football player with professional ambitions whose future becomes cloudy when he is diagnosed with cancer.

Early reports of Jackson’s 80-pound weight loss in preparation for the role surfaced in mid-2010, with many celebrity gossip blogs speculating whether or not Jackson was truly sick. All rumors came to an end when the platinum rapper explained that he was preparing for a movie role.

Initially titled Things Fall Apart, Jackson was forced to rename it after author Chinua Achebe protested the film sharing the same name as his 1958 literary classic. Achebe would rebuke a one million dollar offer from Jackson, and the movie would ultimately be changed to All Things Fall Apart.

Having made its initial debut at Urbanworld Film Festival 2011, the movie acquired a distribution deal with Image Entertainment after being screened at the Toronto International Film Festival with a tentative release in early 2012.

Also starring Mario Van Peebles, Lynn Whitfield and Ray Liotta, fans looking to catch the movie before it hits theaters can tune into BET on December 3, 2011, at 9:30P/8:30C for the world broadcast premiere.

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(Photo: Courtesy Cheetah Vision)