“You’re going to war with a corporation that owns a day of the week.”
On Monday, Sony Pictures gave Sports Illustrated‘s Peter King an exclusive look at Concussion, a movie about Dr. Bennet Omalu, the man largely responsible for discovering CTE. The Nigerian-born doctor ultimately made his discovery about brain injuries after performing an autopsy on Pittsburgh Steelers’ great Mike Webster.
King spoke with director Peter Landesman about why he made the movie and his thoughts on the game of football. Landesman, for his part, believes he’s telling a story and says he does not “feel responsible or connected to the consequences.”
I have no position on whether or not people should play football or whether they should have their kids play football. To me, this is a story about making adult choices. Once you have the information—and the information has been obscured for a long time, it’s been buried and covered up by people who don’t want to damage the sport—the information is now out there and I hope this movie brings together the information in a way that the general public can metabolize and now make their own decisions.
The movie, starring Will Smith, is due out on Christmas 2015.
