SerpApi.Org
Richard Linklater loves his baseball maybe more than any filmmaker not named Ken Burns. After directing his "Bad News Bears" remake, the baseball documentary "Inning by Inning: A Portrait of a Coach," his college baseball comedy "Everybody Wants Some!," he's found another pet project on an icon of the game, Lou Gehrig.
Linklater is attached to direct an untitled film about New York Yankees great Lou Gehrig at Universal Pictures, and Linklater will reunite with the star of his "Hit Man" and "Everybody Wants Some!" Glen Powell to play the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.
Simon Rich, the "SNL" writer who most recently penned the screenplay for Luca Guadagnino's much-discussed Sam Altman movie "Artificial," is writing the script. And Lorne Michaels, himself a massive Yankees fan, is producing the film alongside Erin David as part of his banner Broadway Video's first-look deal with Universal. Powell is also producing the film alongside Dan Cohen under Barnstorm's first-look deal with Universal.
Plot details for this one are still being kept under wraps, but Deadline, which first reported the news, writes that the film is looking to cast alongside Gehrig the role of Babe Dahlgren, the player who faced enormous pressure when he replaced Gehrig in the lineup at 1st Base for the Yankees in 1939 when Gehrig's then-record 2,130 consecutive game streak across 14 seasons came to an end because of his ALS disease diagnosis.
Gehrig's legacy as one of baseball's all-time greats was immortalized in "The Pride of the Yankees" starring Gary Cooper, the 1942 Oscar-winning film that also featured Babe Ruth playing himself. If anyone was going to depict Gehrig's story on screen for the first time in over 80 years, we're glad it's Linklater.
Powell has been working pretty tirelessly for the last couple of years. This year alone he starred in the HBO Max movie "How to Make a Killing," was the voice of Star Fox in "The Super Mario Galaxy Movie," would have appeared in JJ Abrams' "The Great Beyond" later this year before that got pushed to 2027, and he led the Hulu series "Chad Powers." He'll also be seen in another Universal film arriving February 7 next year, "The Comeback King" from director Judd Apatow. With all that activity, it's unclear when this film will get started.
Linklater hasn't been slouching either. Last year he had two films released, "Nouvelle Vague" about the making of "Breathless," and "Blue Moon" about Lorenz Hart that landed Ethan Hawke an Oscar nomination. Powell's work with Linklater though, including one of his breakouts with "Everybody Wants Some!" and then again for "Hit Man," is some of the best of his career. Linklater is also of course continually filming "Merrily We Roll Along" in his "Boyhood" style, filming chunks each year as the actors age in real time.
Powell is represented by CAA, The Initiative Group and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole. Linklater is repped by CAA, Cinetic Media and Paula Woods Consultants. Rich is represented by CAA and Eastman and Eastman. Senior Executive Vice President of Production Development Erik Baiers will oversee the project for Universal.
