Ron Shelton, the guy behind Bull Durham, White Men Can't Jump, and Tin Cup, is set to make a movie based on Game of Shadows:How does Shelton see “Game of Shadows” as film?Shelton -- a man whose signature successes are based on thoughtful human stories about endearing losers set in the milieu of sports -- chooses to invest himself in a banal, technical anti-drama which, even if done well, will not contain a single sympathetic character.
“It’s not really about Bonds and it’s not really about Clemens,” he said, although how the Clemens situation plays out may enter into it just as Bonds is certain to be a part of it. “It’s more about the uncovering of the details, more like ‘All the President’s Men’, which wasn’t really about [ Richard] Nixon specifically."
Yeah, that should work out well.
(link via BTF)
3 comments:
Shelton movies with unsympathetic characters, what about Cobb? Didn't see it it but I think it stiffed, although I've read it's decent.
I think the baseball movie that Shelton should make is the Bill James story. You want the requisite "arc" that movie making formulae say is crucial?
James, geek, security guard, stat nut, outsider, object of ridicule in print and on TV, changes the game, becomes part of the game and scores a couple of World Series rings.
Well, I'd like it...but I don't how blowin shit up would fit in..that's pretty much a must in Hollywood isn't it?
Good point on Cobb though, no, that wasn't all that well received. And even with Cobb you have something of a dramatic contradiction or mystery at the middle of it: how can someone so good at one thing be so rotten in so many other ways? With steroids you have nothing like that.
I like the James idea much better. While you'd still have the same dramatization issues there you'd have with steroids (how can looking at a spreadsheet or a test tube, or whatever be made interesting) at least you have an interesting character at the center of it.
I read "Juiced," and I thought that would make a great movie. But it would have to NOT paint Canseco as such a hero/victim, so it will never happen. A well done movie about the steroids in baseball topic (or even professional wrestling for that matter, or probably any sport,) could be an excellent movie.
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