Austin Butler is playing Lance Armstrong in a new movie.
‘Conclave’s Edward Berger is aboard to direct.
Zach Baylin will write the script.
Though a specific part of his life and career has been brought to screens before (in 2015’s ‘The Program’, where he was played by Ben Foster), a new movie focused on controversial cyclist Lance Armstrong is in the works.
Producer Scott Stuber, who has been trying to set this project up for years now, has convinced Armstrong to sign over his life rights and promises a biopic that won’t pull any punches (more on the cyclist’s story below).
What’s the story of the new Lance Armstrong movie?
Lance Armstrong in ’30 for 30: Lance’. Photo: ESPN.
It may not be a complete life-story biopic, but the screenplay from ‘King Richard’s Zach Baylin certainly has good material to work from: Armstrong famously survived cancer and returned to the world of pro cycling, where he would go on to win the famed Tour de France an incredible seven consecutive times.
Hollywood would soon fall in love with that story, with several A-listers chasing the role of a lifetime. But before that story could be told, Armstrong, after denying it for years, ultimately admitted to blood doping, ultimately ending his career.
When will the Lance Armstrong movie be on screens?
Right now, this only exists as a packaged project with several studios bidding to take it on. Stuber has a deal at Amazon MGM Studios, but this idea apparently predates that, so it’s available to a variety of potential homes.
Sydney Sweeney in ‘Christy’. Photo: Black Bear Pictures.
There are two films out now based on the true stories of professional fighters: one, ‘The Smashing Machine,’ focuses on its subject (MMA fighter Mark Kerr) and his addiction, while the other, ‘Christy,’ chronicles the career of the first major female boxer, Christy Martin (Sydney Sweeney), as well as her abusive marriage to her trainer and manager.
‘The Smashing Machine’ doesn’t follow the usual biopic route, hopping through random moments in Kerr’s life in kaleidoscopic fashion but leaving us wondering just who he really was. ‘Christy’ follows the standard biopic formula – the rise, fall, and rise again of its subject in linear fashion – and while it doesn’t break the mold of those tropes, it’s ultimately the more affecting film because of its protagonist, her resiliency, and two incendiary performances from its stars.
Story and Direction
(L to R) Sydney Sweeney and director David Michôd in ‘Christy’. Photo: Black Bear Pictures.
We first meet Christy Salters (later Martin) when she wins a local boxing match for the princely sum of $300 and a jacket. But her parents (Ethan Embry and a quietly vicious Merritt Wever) are more concerned with the rumors that their daughter is dating another local girl named Rosie (Jess Gabor as a fictionalized version of the real person). When Christy gets a call from a regional boxing promoter, it’s a chance to get some space of her own and learn whether boxing is really ‘her thing’ or not.
Enter trainer Jim Martin (Ben Foster), who is at first dismissive of the idea of training a woman until he sees Christy knock a sparring partner out cold. Martin trains Christy and ultimately marries her, but her rocket-like rise to fame and fortune as the first major female boxing star is only matched by the increasingly controlling and abusive behavior of the toxic, tightly-wound Martin, who sees Christy as less a partner and soulmate and more a meal ticket he can shove around.
Christy’s ascent, peak, and eventual downfall are documented by director David Michôd (‘Animal Kingdom,’‘War Machine’) in standard fashion. There are the early scenes of her going-nowhere life, her conflicts with family, training and fighting montages, and eventually financial and drug problems (Christy claims later that Martin got her addicted to coke to keep her under his thumb). There’s nothing exceptional about the way the story is structured and even the boxing scenes, while well-staged, don’t bring anything new to the table.
What gives ‘Christy’ its power is the dark road it goes down in its second half, as the relationship between Christy and the malignant Martin curdles into something dangerous and climaxes in a sequence that is outright shocking. But the seeds for this are planted early on, and not just through the dynamic with Martin: so much of the movie shows how men – from her own loving but hapless father to boxing promoter Don King – condescended to Christy from the start. Martin tells her how to dress, how long her hair should be, and who she can talk to, but her family tells her who she can date and King tells her to sign a contract without having a lawyer read it.
Most biopics that follow the rise/fall/rise formula don’t have a person at their center who went through what Christy Salters when through – being left for dead both professionally and literally at one point. That things get to that point – and yet she manages to literally walk out of it all on her own two feet – gives ‘Christy’ an extra power that gives it an extra boost in a genre that’s been running on fumes for a while.
Cast and Performances
(L to R) Ben Foster and Sydney Sweeney in ‘Christy’. Photo: Black Bear Pictures.
Sydney Sweeney is a formidable young actor, and ‘Christy’ may be her best big-screen work to date. She is almost unrecognizable at first, but more than capably projects Christy’s drive, determination, and self-assurance, as well as her fear and inner vulnerability. Sweeney also handles herself quite well in the boxing scenes and bulks up a bit to create Christy’s physical presence. The wigs representing Christy’s hairstyles throughout the years may be the only flaw in her transformation here. Otherwise she is absorbing as this not always likable but still empathetic figure, and brings a raw level of pain to her work.
Seeing Ben Foster’s name in a movie sends a signal that there is an extreme, often repressed and/or unpredictable character afoot, but he ups even his impressive intensity with his immersive work as the vile Jim Martin. From his wheedling initial manipulation of Christy to his later dead-eyed psychosis, Martin goes from distasteful to horrifying over the course of the story and is believable every step of the way. He and Sweeney could both be in the Oscar race if ‘Christy’ gains some traction.
Merritt Wever (‘Nurse Jackie’) plays Christy’s homophobic mother Joyce with an enraging soft-spoken cruelty, while Katy O’Brian (‘Love Lies Bleeding’) delivers some welcome humanity and warmth as boxer Lisa Holewyne. Chad Coleman brings the comic relief as Don King, while we wish we saw more of Christy’s father as played by a sad-eyed Ethan Embry.
‘Christy’ is a boxing picture from a different perspective. It’s not ‘Rocky’ or ‘Raging Bull.’ While the characters in those movies face considerable challenges, they are never denigrated for their sexuality or abused by a borderline psychotic narcissist and degenerate. Christy’s fate is sadly no different from that of so many other women – she just meets it in a profession and climate that is stacked against her.
The movie leaves some questions unanswered: her wicked mother aside, did her father and brother try to intervene, or was she too afraid to tell them? What happened with Rosie, the only person who helped her in her darkest hour? The limitations of the format leave some plot threads unclear and condense a lot of the narrative’s action as it skips from ‘this happened’ to ‘that happened.’ But the bruising battle outside the ring is what ultimately makes ‘Christy,’ if not a knockout, a win on points all the same.
‘Christy’ receives a score of 80 out of 100.
‘Christy’ opens in theaters on November 7th.
What is the plot of ‘Christy’?
Determined to win, Christy Martin (Sydney Sweeney) leaves behind her small-town roots and charges into the world of boxing under the guidance of her trainer and manager-turned-husband, Jim (Ben Foster). But her toughest battles unfold outside the ring — confronting family, identity, and a relationship that just might become deadly.
Apple probably thought it was on to a stone-cold awards contender with Antoine Fuqua’s latest, ‘Emancipation’.
With Will Smith starring in the stirring based-on-truth story of Peter, a man who escapes from slavery, relying on his wits, unwavering faith and deep love for his family to evade cold-blooded hunters and the unforgiving swamps of Louisiana on his quest for freedom, it looked like it could be Oscar bait.
For anyone who has been living under a rock, it all went down when Chris Rock took the stage at the Academy Awards to present Best Documentary. He made a number of jokes, including one directed at Jada Pinkett-Smith that referred to her bald head.
Given that Pinkett-Smith has alopecia, the joke was seen in poor taste and Smith, after initially chuckling, then took the stage and slapped Rock. Upon his return to his seat, he shouted, “keep my wife’s mouth out of your f*****g mouth” more than once.
It shocked the audience, and the wider watching world, and Smith returned to the stage later in the evening to collect Best Actor for ‘King Richard’. Yet the ramifications continued well after the night itself.
Smith issued apologies, while Rock mostly talked about it during stand-up shows in the months following. The Academy went the disciplinary route, banning Smith from its events for a decade, but letting him keep his award.
Will Smith stars in Apple’s ‘Emancipation,’ directed by Antoine Fuqua.
Which brings us back to ‘Emancipation’, which was announced back in 2020 and quickly snapped up by Apple.
The historical story and triumph of the human spirit must’ve been a big appeal to Apple – and the presence of Smith, especially when he was Oscar-nominated for ‘King Richard’, just added to that.
Yet now the company faces the uphill struggle of releasing the movie in the wake of the Academy Awards incident, with a star who couldn’t collect his Oscar even if he’s nominated or wins.
Still, there is a lot that is compelling about this one: When Peter showed his bare back during an Army medical examination, photos were taken of the scars from a whipping delivered by an overseer on the plantation owned by John and Bridget Lyons that nearly killed the slave. When the photo known as “the scourged back” was published by the Independent in May 1863 and then ‘Harper’s Weekly’s July 4 issue, it became indisputable proof of the cruelty and barbarity of slavery in America. The photo reached around the world, and legend has it that it made countries like France refuse to buy cotton from the South. It solidified the cause of abolitionists and prompted many free blacks to join the Union Army.
“It was the first viral image of the brutality of slavery that the world saw,” Fuqua told Deadline when the movie was originally confirmed. “Which is interesting, when you put it into perspective with today and social media and what the world is seeing, again. You can’t fix the past, but you can remind people of the past and I think we have to, in an accurate, real way. We all have to look for a brighter future for us all, for everyone. That’s one of the most important reasons to do things right now, is show our history. We have to face our truth before we can move forward.”
Facing some hard truths will reach beyond the movie’s narrative.
Adam Sandler is a fan of basketball – especially the New York Knicks – and he does sometimes slip the sport into his movies. But ‘Hustle’ marks the first time he’s starring in an entire movie about the subject, and the trailer is now online.
‘Hustle’, directed by Jeremiah Zagar, with a script by Will Fetters and Taylor Materne, is the story of an ambitious basketball scout who takes on a big challenge – one that could boost or shatter his career.
Stanley Sugerman’s (Sandler) love for basketball is unparalleled, but the travel weary Philadelphia 76ers scout who has higher ambitions of being a coach remains stuck on the road looking for the next unknown talent.
His search around the world leads him to Spain, when he discovers Bo Cruz (NBA player Juancho Hernangómez), an incredible streetball player with a troubled past. Stanley and Bo connect on and off the court, with their passion for the game and as loving family men who want to prove they can win, in basketball and in life. With the support of Stanley’s wife, Teresa (Queen Latifah), can the underdogs come out on top?
Director Zagar earned healthy reviews for his previous movie, ‘We Are the Animals’ and has been working on short films since then. Writer Fetters has worked on movies such as the Oscar-winning 2018 version of ‘A Star is Born’ and romantic dramas ‘The Best of Me’ and ‘The Lucky One’. Materne, meanwhile, has mostly been a producer on movies including ‘The Longest Week’ and has a new basketball documentary, ‘Nothing But Net’, in the works.
One of the biggest players behind the scenes of this one is LeBron James – the basketball icon, veteran of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Miami Heat and Los Angeles Lakers, who has been making big strides in movies while keeping his career on the court moving. The ‘Space Jam: A New Legacy’ star is one of the producers on this movie, and we’re certain he’ll have offered his expertise for the basketball scenes.
This is the latest collaboration between Sandler and streaming service Netflix, and while most of his output for the company has been largely skewed towards his comedy side – ‘Hubie Halloween’, for example, or ‘Murder Mystery’ (which already has a sequel in production – ‘Hustle’ represents more of a grounded blend of dramatic and comedic, though nowhere near as intense as the likes of ‘Uncut Gems’. He also has sci-fi drama ‘Spaceman’, which tells the story of a man raised in the Czech countryside who dreams of becoming the country’s first astronaut.
Chris Pine in ‘The Contractor.’ Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
Opening in theaters and On-Demand beginning April 1st is the new action movie ‘The Contractor,’ from director Tarik Saleh (‘Westworld’).
The movie stars Chris Pine (‘Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit‘) as James Harper, a discharged U.S. Special Forces sergeant who joins a private contracting organization. While overseas on a covert mission, he must evade those trying to kill him and make his way back home safely to his family.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Chris Pine about his work on ‘The Contractor.’
8pav9GYJ
You can read our full interview with Chris Pine below or watch a video of our interviews with Pine and director Tarik Saleh about ‘The Contractor’ by clicking on the player above.
Moviefone: To begin with, what was your first reaction when you read the script for ‘The Contractor?’
Chris Pine: I was really moved by it. I thought it was a really poetic and sensitive take on a genre piece. It’s really a character study that’s masquerading as an action thriller film. I thought it was a great opportunity to have something that was highly commercial and accessible, but also required people to really think and that intrigued me.
MF: Can you talk about the research you did to play this role?
CP: I spent about three months with a guy, Chris Dunn, out in the desert here in Los Angeles, working, doing close quarters combat and weapons training. I met with Bert Kuntz, who was our technical advisor, who’s a green beret and medic. I read a ton of books and investigated the script with Bert to make sure that things seemed real. That was what I did.
MF: What do you think your character would say is the most important aspect of his life?
CP: That’s a difficult question. I think at first it would be family, God, and country. But by the end of the film it’s just family.
MF: There is a lot of action in the film. Do you do your own stunts and how do you prepare for those scenes?
CP: I generally do everything that I can, that the insurance company will allow me to do. I had an incredible stunt double with whom I’ve worked for many years. But everything is different. It depends on how they want to shoot it. It depends on the time we have. It depends on so many things, but this one was a particularly brutal shoot.
(L to R) Chris Pine and Ben Foster in ‘The Contractor.’ Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
MF: You reunite with your ‘Hell or High Water’ co-star Ben Foster for this movie. What do you like about working with him, and what is the relationship like between your two characters?
CP: It’s always great working with Ben. I wish I could work with Ben on most things I do. It’s nice to go to work with someone whom you have great respect, who you like and who gets the work the same way you do and wants to achieve the same things. We have a shorthand. Obviously, we didn’t have much time on this film. We didn’t have much money. We didn’t have an incredible amount of rehearsal time. So, to get to go to work, get to set, and hit the ground running was really important.
MF: Were you involved with choosing Tarik Saleh to direct this movie?
CP: Yes. 100%. I’d seen ‘The Nile Hilton Incident’ and I absolutely loved it. It’s an Egyptian police noir, starring Fares Fares, who shows up in our film. I think he’s incredibly talented. I heard that he was interested in the script. We met in New York very briefly and then we were off to the races.
MF: What was he like to work with on set?
CP: Tarik is wonderful. He’s incredibly collaborative. He trusted me a great deal. We really just picked this thing apart as my much as we could to figure out the emotional arc and through line of it. It was tricky work and it wouldn’t have worked unless we had open minds. It took me, Tarik, Ben and everyone involved trying to say, “Well, how does this work? Does it, does this make sense?”
Director Tarik Saleh on set of ‘The Contractor.’ Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
MF: Finally, what do you hope audiences take away from seeing the film?
CP: Really this is a story about one man dealing with the effects of his world being turned upside down. We would never see this man losing his job, losing his pension, losing his healthcare and going to do anything else but being a military contractor. That’s the hard thing. Here’s a guy that is, in terms of the amount of money they spend on one of these highly trained warriors, it’s millions of dollars. They are a weapon.
After a twenty some odd years of service as a highly trained weapon, you then get out into the real world and if you’re facing financial troubles, you don’t have enough time to get yourself out of the muck by working a normal job. Whereas you can go and make really incredible money doing something you’re passionate about that you’re highly trained and qualified for. It seemed to make a lot of logical sense, making that move for James.
Ben Foster (who really should have gotten some Oscar love for his performances in “Leave No Trace” and “Hell or High Water“) might finally have his hat in the ring with the upcoming boxing drama “Harry Haft.”
Barry Levinson (“Rain Man,” Good Morning, Vietnam”) is directing the true story of Haft, who survived Auschwitz and became a professional boxer. The remarkable Vicky Krieps of “Phantom Thread” will play the woman he seeks to win over.
The official synopsis: “Harry is driven by his love of a woman to survive the unimaginable horrors of the German concentration camps. An SS Officer forces Harry to fight to the death against fellow prisoners in gruesome gladiatorial boxing matches. Harry finally escapes and makes it to New York. Haunted by his memories and guilt over his survival, he fights boxing legends, like Rocky Marciano, in the hopes that his name will get noticed and he will find his first love again.”
BRON Studios
Levinson told IndieWire, “I wanted to tell the true story about how the love of a woman saves a young man from death at the hands of the Nazis. When Harry comes to America to search for the woman he loves, he is convinced that only by becoming a famous boxer will he find her. Ultimately, it is this love that is also at the root of his redemption for the guilt of having survived — this is the story of Harry Haft.”
Sounds like an awards magnet… but the film won’t be out until at least 2020.
