From Richard Jewell to village sex: 9 Olympics movies stuck in development
LOS ANGELES -- Like the rest of the world this month, Hollywood has been struck by a case of Olympic fever.
You can't throw a javelin without hitting an Olympic-themed project in this town -- though you'd think more would be on the fast-track to a greenlight. What better way to chase broad global audiences than dramatizing an event that brings the world together for a few weeks?
Mashable lit an Olympic torch under Hollywood, hoping to illuminate the many Olympic-themed projects hiding in the shadowy world of development, active or otherwise. And we found quite a few.
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Stories range from political thrillers to inspirational dramas to good old-fashioned sex comedies -- for which there is no shortage of story possibilities.
Let's survey the field -- keeping in mind that there are several other projects taking shape around town that weren't ready to be discussed, according to the producers and dealmakers involved.
1. The Ballad of Richard Jewell
The highest profile project involving the Olympic Games is 20th Century Fox's The Ballad of Richard Jewell, set amid the 1996 summer games in Atlanta, where security guard Richard Jewell was accused of being involved in a bombing at Centennial Olympic Park. Jewell discovered a suspicious knapsack containing three homemade pipe bombs before he alerted police and helped to clear the area, saving lives in the process. Initially hailed as a hero, Jewell was later considered a suspect and underwent a trial by media that took a toll on his personal life.
The project once had Jonah Hill and Leonardo DiCaprio attached to play Jewell and his attorney, respectively, though only Hill remains attached to star. DiCaprio remains onboard to produce the film with his Appian Way partner Jennifer Davisson Killoran, as well as Hill and Kevin Misher.
Clint Eastwood was once reportedly in talks to direct The Ballad of Richard Jewell but his deal never made and Fox is still seeking a director. The project boasts a screenplay by Billy Ray (Captain Phillips), who based his script on a Vanity Fair article by Marie Brenner.
2. The Olympic Village comedy
Former Disney chief Michael Eisner is developing an untitled comedy set in Olympic Village. Eisner's Tornante Co. hired siblings Jim and Brian Kehoe to write the comedy, which is keeping its logline under wraps. An executive at Tornante declined to comment when pressed for details, which is understandable -- given the fact that there are competing projects in the marketplace.
3. The other Olympic Village comedy
Along the same lines, Sony and producer Matt Tolmach are developing an Olympic Village comedy written by Kyle Pennekamp and Scott Turpel, the duo behind the Miles Teller-Bryan Cranston comedy Get a Job. Again, details were hard to come by, as the competitive project remains shrouded in secrecy.
4. The Olympic Village comedy, sex edition
Writer-director Bryan C. Watkins and producer Steve Sims is shopping Village Idiots, a comedy in the vein of The Hangover about three down-on-their-luck buddies who hear about all the condoms being passed out in Olympic Village and decide to crash the games to get laid. The script has landed him meetings with top management companies and veteran producers.
5. The man who convinced China to compete
Participant Media, which backed last year's Best Picture winner Spotlight, is developing Olympic Dream, a script by Mark Friedman (Wayward Pines) about Charles Lee, the man who convinced China to defy a Soviet Union-led boycott and participate in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. A 2008 New York Times article sheds a bit more light on this interesting footnote in Olympic history.
6. The rags-to-gold story
Winterstone Pictures is developing 800, which tells the story of Zambia's Prince Mumba, who specialized in the 800-meter race at the Olympics. Producer Ashley Avis Winters tells Mashable that the company has secured Prince Mumba's life rights and recently shot a short piece with him at the Santa Monica Track Club as it attempts to chronicle his rise from poverty to Olympic glory.
7. The political thriller
Farhad Safinia, who co-wrote Mel Gibson's 2006 masterpiece Apocalypto, has written Mexico '68, a political thriller involving CIA espionage in Olympic Village. Not only is it believed to be based on a true story, but It's said to take a different approach than other projects on this list, which Hollywood may find refreshing.
8. The first Olympic games
Sony and producer Mark Gordon (Steve Jobs) are developing a project about the very first Olympic Games, though it's unclear whether that refers to the ancient Games that were staged in Olympia, Greece from 776 BC through 393 AD, or the first modern Olympics held in Athens, Greece in 1896.
9. Medal or DIE
Sibling scribes Shea and Evan Mirzai, who wrote the high school comedy Ultra for Sony and Will Smith's production company, have teamed with the father-and-son producing team of Alan and Peter Riche (Southpaw) to develop The Olympians. It's a comedy about two best friends whose dreams of winning Olympic gold and fantasies about running amok in the famously sexual Olympic Village are dashed when they're rejected by the American team. In order to compete in the Games, they become citizens of a small nation, but the stakes are raised when their new tyrannical dictator tells them it's medal or die. [A mock poster for The Olympians can be seen below, though keep in mind that neither Chris Pine nor Josh Gad are actually attached to the project.]
Topics Olympics
