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Marion "Suge" Knight (left) speaks with his attorney, Thomas Mesereau, at a hearing in his murder case in Los Angeles, July 7, 2015. Reuters/Patrick T. Fallon

"Straight Outta Compton," the new film about the pioneering West Coast hip-hop act N.W.A., takes an unflinching look at Marion “Suge” Knight, the gangster-rap label executive who many believe orchestrated the group’s early 1990s breakup. The film, which captured the No. 1 spot in weekend box-office sales, has fueled rumors that Knight may have had something to do with the N.W.A. member Eazy-E’s AIDS death in 1995.

Eazy-E’s diagnosis and death came suddenly after his feud with his fellow N.W.A. members – Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, DJ Yella and MC Ren – had reached a fever pitch. A 2003 clip of Knight delivering a seemingly unprompted joke on late-night comedian host Jimmy Kimmel’s TV show about how Eazy-E died has refueled suspicions following the movie’s big weekend.

In the clip of Knight's appearance, Eazy-E 's death is the punch line of a joke about why Kimmel had chosen to wear a bulletproof vest during his interview of Knight. Kimmel and the audience seemed stunned by Knight’s joke about how to commit murder without drawing suspicion.

"Technology is so high [now],” Knight said in the 2003 clip. “If you shoot somebody, you go to jail forever. You don’t want to go to jail forever. ... They have a new thing out. They have this stuff they called ... they get blood from somebody with AIDS and they [inject] you with it. That’s slow death. The Eazy-E thing, you know what I mean?"

Knight, 50, is facing trial on murder charges stemming from a hit-and-run incident in Compton earlier this year. He'd been on the set of a movie-trailer shoot for "Straight Outta Compton" before allegedly running over another man attending the taping.

Not all fans are buying conspiracy theorists' claims about Knight's involvement in Eazy-E's death.