In a year that saw Warner Bros. break the bank with 42, on color barrier-breaking baseball star Jackie Robinson, Disney is headed in a similar direction. They're developing a biopic on Olympic track & field superstar, Jesse Owens, and they've got White House Down's Antoine Fuqua to direct it.
Based on the book Triumph by ESPN analyst Jeremy Schaap, and adapted by The King Speech scribe David Seidler, the film "recounts Owens’ rise from a poor childhood in 1920s Cleveland to his ascendance in running and the long jump. At Berlin, he won four gold medals, a direct affront to Adolf Hitler's ideas of Aryan superiority."
Anthony Mackie had been working on his own Owens film some time ago but this will probably put that one to rest, if it hadn't been shuttered already. Perhaps Disney, who already have Mackie in the fold for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, will turn to him for the lead? [THR]
