It seems like there have been a lot of football movies made over the past few years, and all have done reasonably well (the NFL is, after all, the most popular professional sports league in the U.S.). Now it looks like there’s another pigskin pic in the works, but the star may come as a bit of a surprise: Jake Gyllenhaal has signed on to star as hall of famer Joe Namath in a biopic about his life. Despite the fact that quarterbacks aren’t necessarily the biggest guys on the field, and despite the fact that Gyllenhaal does bear an uncanny resemblance to Namath, I’m sure there are a lot of people who may have a hard time buying Gyllenhaal as the all-
American athlete. Mark Wahlberg or The Rock? Sure. But Donnie Darko? I guess it just means he’ll be hitting the gym hard.

At any rate, the script won’t even be written until after the WGA strike is settled; David Hollander (Personal Effects) will be the man to pen it. I will say that out of all the football movies that have come along lately, this one sounds particularly interesting because of Namath’s celebrity status at the time and his role as a cultural icon throughout the 60’s. As executive producer Jimmy Walsh puts it, “Most of the stuff you saw in Forrest Gump, Joe lived through all of it.” I wonder if he also had a friend named Bubba. No word on a director as of yet, but obviously it may still be a while before this project gets underway.