secretariat Tagged Articles at Cinematical
'Secretariat' Gets More Solid Cast Members
Filed under: Drama », Sports », Casting »
Get ready for the sports waterworks, folks. Back in June, Jenni Miller wrote about the latest horse racing drama to cook up -- Secretariat, with Diane Lane attached to play the thoroughbred's owner, Penny Chenery. Now the major players are in place, and there's no doubt that Disney is prepping this is a big sports drama. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Dylan Walsh, John Malkovich, and Scott Glenn have joined the production, which began shooting this week.Secretariat was the horse that broke a 25-year Triple Crown dry spell, setting world records and winning the final Belmont Stakes with an eye-goggling 31-length win (in other words, so far ahead that the horses behind look teeny). He's pretty much the horse amongst race fans, and is known for having the biggest recorded heart (22 lbs). But it all started with a coin toss.
THR says Glenn will play "a southern-bred aristocrat who loses the horse in a coin toss," although that's not quite how it plays out. Glenn must be Ogden Phipps, and as the story goes, there were coin tosses to discern who would get what horse. Phipps won the toss, but Penny Chenery scored an unborn foal in the deal who turned out to be Secretariat. Walsh will play Penny's husband, "a successful attorney who is accustomed to his wife being at his beck and call," and who is, undoubtedly, in line for a wake-up call. Finally, John Malkovich will play a trainer who underestimates the horse's power (Lucien Laurin?).
And they're off!
Disney and Diane Lane Jump on 'Secretariat'
Filed under: Drama », Sports », Casting », Family Films »
Diane Lane's grabbing the reins in Disney's new film Secretariat. Lane will be starring as Penny Chenery, a housewife who takes over her father's thoroughbreeding farm after he falls ill. She learns the ropes fast, and her horse Secretariat goes on to win the 1973 Triple Crown. Secretariat will focus on her relationship with the prize-winning horse, which is a nice change from movies focusing on relationships between, say, Lane and Richard Gere as in 2008's weepy Nights in Rodanthe. Randall Wallace, who wrote the screenplays for Atlas Shrugged, We Were Soldiers, Pearl Harbor, and Braveheart, is directing; he also directed We Were Soldiers and The Man in the Iron Mask. Mike Rich is behind the script; he also penned similarly inspirational flicks The Nativity Story, The Rookie, and Finding Forrester.
Secretariat sounds a little bit Seabiscuit-y and a little bit you-go-girl, with a distinct possibility for sappiness. Is Disney aiming for Diane Lane's demo or horse-loving young girls? It's too early to tell, but I'm just happy to see a movie with a strong female lead who isn't just interested in shoes and dudes. And despite some missteps with films like the aforementioned Nights in Rodanthe,Jumper, and Untraceable, Diane Lane pretty much rocks.
News Bites: Secretariat, Tennessee Williams & Amphibians
Filed under: Drama », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Sports », Deals », Scripts »
News bites for your Tuesday:- In the wake of failed attempts at the Triple Crown and terrible horse injuries, Variety reports that Disney is getting ready to revel in Big Red, Secretariat. Mike Rich wrote the script, and Randall Wallace has signed on to direct. The film will focus on the story of owner Penny Chenery, and how she took over her father's horse farm, was slapped with a huge inheritance tax upon his death, and still managed to save the farm and horse. Secretariat then became the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years.
- On the more artsy side of things, Variety reports that Taylor Hackford is cooking up a film called Tenn, focusing on "the formative years" of Tennessee Williams. Robin Shushan wrote the screenplay, which delves into the playwright's "tumultuous upbringing -- complete with a scornful father, depression, conflicts about sexuality and watching his beloved sister institutionalized and lobotomized." In other words, a rip-roaring laugh fest. The project is said to be similar to Capote and how tragedy can breed success.
- Lastly, The Hollywood Reporter posts that Alexander Belyaev's The Amphibian is headed for the big screen, courtesy of Stone Village Pictures. The hunt is underway for a screenwriter, and the company is planning comic books/graphic novel adaptations to accompany the film. It's a strange twist of a story -- an American surgeon in the Amazon saves his son from a fatal respiratory disease by giving him shark gills. But when the underwater kid saves a girl from a shark attack, things get complicated as they fall for each other. It's like Aquaman meets Splash!
Fox Walden Lines Up Another One -- Basketball This Time
Filed under: Drama », Sports », 20th Century Fox »
Here's another true story that was just screaming to be a movie: Frank Gildea returns to college twenty years after dropping out, joins his son Isaac on the school's basketball team and helps to win the team's first conference championship in 27 years. It sounds so cinematically appropriate you'd almost think the father and son had Hollywood in mind when making their life choices. Whatever the intentions, the duo has apparently sold the rights to their story to Walden Media (Amazing Grace), which will be producing, along with Mayhem Pictures, for 20th Century Fox. Brad Gann, who wrote the similarly against-the-odds sports movie Invincible, is currently at work on the screenplay.If the story does seem a little familiar, you have probably seen one of my all-time favorite guilty pleasures, Back to School. In that comedy Rodney Dangerfield plays a man who enrolls in the college that his son attends and the two end up on the diving team together. The only real difference is that, unlike Dangerfield's character, Frank Gildea had already been to college. Oh, and basketball is typically more cinematic than diving. But really this movie isn't likely to be too comparable with Back to School. In its tone and in its demographic interests, it should share more in common with The Rookie, which features Dennis Quaid as a middle-aged man who returns to a career in minor league baseball. That film was also produced by Mayhem Pictures, which also made Invincible and Miracle and is currently at work on a Secretariat movie.
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