Has there ever been a good football movie? Our main choices are "Mike Bassett: England manager", "There's only one Jimmy Grimble" and "Escape to victory". They all had their strong points: Mike Basset's speech, Robert Carlyle as the grizzled Man City Veteran and Slyvester Stallone as a goalkeeper. But we might have a new contender. According to Variety magazine, a Lionel Messi "Rocky" style biopic is going into production.
Epic Pictures Group is developing a “Rocky”-style movie version of the life of soccer superstar Lionel Messi.
The company has acquired all rights to the biography “Messi: The Inside Story of the Boy Who Became a Legend” by Luca Caioli. Epic will finance and produce the film.
Epic toppers Patrick Ewald and Shaked Berenson are meeting with writers and directors with a projected release date to coincide with next year’s World Cup, to be held in Brazil starting on June 12, 2014.
Let's project this out. So far we have Joe Pesci as Messi senior and Alan Rickman as the sinister doctor who convinces Messi to take the growth medicine. The key question is who will play Messi? Perhaps an unknown would be best, I fear Danny DeVito and Tom Cruise are too old.
