WEIRDLAND: Hall of Fame quarterback

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Hall of Fame quarterback

"Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Namath was the first football player to find rock-star status.

Universal Pictures will turn the life of Joe Namath into a feature film, with Jake Gyllenhaal playing the Hall of Fame quarterback.

David Hollander will write the script once the writers strike is over. Mad Chance's Andrew Lazar will produce. Jimmy Walsh, who runs Namanco Prods., exec produces.

Walsh said he and Namath OK'd the movie after a long pursuit by Lazar, a strong take by Hollander and the belief that the athletic Gyllenhaal was the right actor to play him.

While other quarterbacks racked up bigger lifetime stats, Namath became the first football player to achieve rock-star status. The pic will tell the story of how the golden-armed kid from Beaver Falls, Pa., became Broadway Joe, the New York Jets quarterback who became a '60s cultural figure.

[...] Gyllenhaal, who is coming off "Rendition" and "Zodiac," is currently shooting the Jim Sheridan-directed "Brothers" with Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman and will follow that by teaming with Doug Liman on an untitled project at DreamWorks that revolves around a moon expedition". Source: Variety.com

2 comments :

Anonymous said...

I know I was complaining before that Jake doesn't has many future projects but now I wish he would stick with "Brothers" and "Nailed" and say no to the moon project and this one!!
I was hoping we would have news about "On the road".We know he was offered the part but no news after that :(

Elena said...

I guess we'll have to wait, I hope this project of the quarterback doesn't land on Jake's hands, I'd rather prefer the "On the road" project too.