Al Pacino is attached to play disgraced former legend Joe Paterno in a biopic, which I thought sounded really weird at first, but then I made this Photoshop, and now I can totally see it. Technology, am I right?
ICM Partners next week will be taking a package for a movie about former Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno, with Al Pacino attached. The package will be built around Joe Posnanski’s biography Paterno, which is now atop The New York Times Bestseller List in its second week. Pacino’s manager, Rick Nicita, will produce.
The narrative arc of the movie that will be shopped is obvious. A man becomes the winningest coach in college football history and builds a powerhouse football program that turns him into a campus deity. When his former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky is revealed to be a pedophile and it comes out Paterno was told and helped hide the scandal, the coach was summarily fired. He died shortly after of cancer — and many feel of a broken heart — and the school had little choice but to raze a fabled statue of Paterno just as the NCAA dropped the hammer with sanctions against the school that included removal of Paterno’s wins going back to the cover-up. Sandusky was found guilty on 45 counts of sexual abuse against young boys and is expected to spend the rest of his life in prison.
Posnanski, an award-winning sportswriter who has written for Sports Illustrated and The Kansas City Star, had spent a year working on the book when the scandal broke. The book–and the movie–isn’t just about Paterno’s demise but rather his life before Penn State, his family and the iron grip he held over Penn State football and politics until his downfall. [Deadline]
SAY HALLO TO MY LEETO FRANE! Now say goodbye because you’re never going to be allowed to be alone together. Anyway. The only things worse than biopics are biopics hastily thrown together to capitalize on a recent death. By the time they come out they feel like a meme that’s already run its course, like a guy still wearing a Charlie Sheen “winning” t-shirt. I guess what I’m saying is, if this ever happens, when it comes out I’ll probably have to make like Paterno and just look the other way. (*pulls out pistol, pulls trigger, a flag pops out that says “OBVIOUS JOKES”*)
This obviously adds a new context to all your favorite Pacino clips and quotes. Especially this one:
This version was the only one embeddable. On the plus side, now I know how to say “great ass” in what ever Slavic tongue this is.
No word yet on who’ll play Jerry Sandusky, but it sounds like the perfect comeback role for Michael Rapaport.