There was a point yesterday where Joe Paterno’s estate and Penn State fans probably felt cautious optimism for the first time in months, like they could, thanks to a diversion elsewhere, finally feel some pride in their team without outside scrutiny. Well that didn’t last long. Joe Paterno’s back in the news, thanks to the story that producer Edward Pressman and writer Dave McKenna’s Paterno biopic project, Happy Valley (based on the book Paterno by Joe Posnanski), has picked up director Brian DePalma. Brian DePalma is a natural choice for the project, considering he’s been absolutely on fire lately, rattling off a string of hits that includes… uh… and… hmmm…
Pacino became attached to play Paterno when a package including the book was shopped by ICM last fall. Pressman will produce with Pacino’s manager, Rick Nicita, who was part of that original package. They are keeping a somewhat low profile on the focus of the film for now. “Happy Valley reunites the Scarface and Carlito’s Way team of De Palma & Pacino for the third time and I can’t think of a better duo to tell this story of a complex, intensely righteous man who was brought down by his own tragic flaw,” said Pressman in confirming the deal to Deadline. [Deadline]
I credit De Palma as being the director who really got Pacino ACTING! with a capital A, and Pacino has only become more of an ACT-TOR in the 20 years since they last worked together. It’ll be a miracle if this goes anywhere but HBO, but on the off chance it does make it to theaters, I have a feeling Pacino’s going to be acting so hard that I’d be scared to watch it without a mouthpiece.
Also, “Joe Posnanski” is just Joe Paterno with a fake mustache making Polack jokes, right?