Ben Foster To Cycle Into Theaters As Lance Armstrong

[Wang Chung]

It's fairly typical for a hot button subject to inspire various projects from competing studios and producers, and in most cases, whichever one actually starts filming first "wins" the race, such as it were. (It's less common that one of the projects keeps going regardless, but that obviously also happens, as Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down most recently demonstrated). In the months after the revelations of Lance Armstrong's doping came out, his story quickly became one such hot project. Previously, most of the news has gone to projects from J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot and Paramount (which Bradley Cooper may have been in talks for), and another from Recount and Game Change director Jay Roach. Today, we learned that the dark horse contender that may actually "win the race" is one from British production company Working Title. Stephen Frears (The Queen, High Fidelity) is attached to direct, with American actor Ben Foster in final talks to play Lance Armstrong. Ben Foster has built up a strong list of supporting roles, including playing a baddie in the remake of 3:10 to Yuma, and roles in the Marvel movies X-Men: The Last Stand (as Angel) and The Punisher (as Spacker Dave). Presumably, Ben Foster also knows how to ride a bike. Working Title expects to start filming their untitled Lance Armstrong movie this fall.

Stephen Frears‘ Lance Armstrong movie is further along than I thought. I’m told that Ben Foster is already in final talks to play Armstrong in the film, which was scripted by Trainspotting’s John Hodge and covers Armstrong’s career from his cancer ordeal to the scandal that brought him down. Always a good actor, Foster has a lot of momentum coming into what could be a careermaking role. He will next be seen in two films that premiered at Sundance, IFC’s Ain’t Them Body Saints and Sony Pictures Classics’ Kill Your Darlings. Foster, who last spring made his Broadway debut opposite Alec Baldwin in Orphans, stars opposite Mark Wahlberg in the Peter Berg-directed Navy SEAL saga Lone Survivor, which Universal releases December 27. The hope is to begin production on the Armstrong film this fall. He is repped by WME, Hodge by United Agents. Still no official comment from reps or Working Title.

EARLIER EXCLUSIVE, 10:19 AM: Director Stephen Frears, in Hollywood promoting his HBO film Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight at TCA, is moving fast on another fact-based movie based on an iconic athlete. I’m told that Frears and Working Title partners Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner have teamed up on a feature film on the doping scandal that enveloped the Tour de France and led to the downfall of 7-time champion Lance Armstrong in the biggest doping scandal in the history of sports. I’m still trying to get all the details, but they are eyeing a start as soon as this fall on the movie. That makes Frears a surprise entry in a crowded field, and that doesn’t even factor in a Sony Pictures Classics deal this week to release the documentary The Armstrong Lie.

There are two other dramatic projects on Armstrong at studios which seemed to have gotten a good head start on Frears. Warner Bros has been working on an untitled project from Atlas Entertainment scripted by Side Effects writer Scott Z. Burns to be directed by Jay Roach, the helmer of celebrated fact-based films Game Change and Recount. The package includes the life rights of Tyler Hamilton, the Olympic gold medalist, NCAA champion and Armstrong teammate on the US Postal Service Team who was menaced by Armstrong after he took to 60 Minutes to break the code of silence. Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot partners JJ Abrams and Bryan Burk are working on a movie about the disgraced bicycle racer, based on the HarperCollins book Cycle Of Lies: The Fall Of Lance Armstrong by New York Times sportwriter Juliet Macur. Not sure how far this one has gotten, but there were rumors that Abrams has discussed the project with Bradley Cooper, who might play Armstrong.

Can all of these movies make it to the start line? Probably not, but there certainly is a good movie to be made about Armstrong, who recovered from near-fatal testicular cancer to win those seven Tour de France titles, only to lose all of it when he finally admitted he had lied all along and disgraced his sport even though he was far from the only one doping. Frears is repped by ICM Partners and Jenne Casarotto in the UK.

I hope this isn't a damning film of Lance but one that shows how he overcame the odds and tells the truth about his PED use since all seem to have used during his time.

 

[Lover Boy]

To be completely honest I hope the movie shows him for the cheating scumbag he really is.

I really hope they don't try and sugarcoat things.

 

[Wang Chung]

To be completely honest I hope the movie shows him for the cheating scumbag he really is.

I really hope they don't try and sugarcoat things.

Well then they should just change the movie to all of cycling because they all do it. There isn't one sport out there where people are not trying to get an edge to be the best. And during his run of 7 wins how far back to do they have to go to find a cyclist who wasn't doping or had ties to doping like somewhere in the 20's. So he was basically in an equal playing field. Not saying I agree about the doping and how he used it but they need to show all the facts and not just what they want to portray.