Robert Redford To Get Back Into a Baseball Uniform for Jackie Robinson Biopic

By  · Published on April 7th, 2011

This project just keeps sounding better and better. The Legendary Pictures take on the life of Jackie Robinson just cast Robert Redford in a major role – that of Branch Rickey, the man who signed Jackie Robinson to the Dodgers and made history by helping to tear that color barrier down. It’ll be great to see Redford back in uniform, even if he’s not busting out stadium lights.

According to the LA Times, the original draft of the script is back to square one with writer/director Brian Helgeland in the driver’s seat. How he can type while driving is beyond me, but the guy wrote L.A. Confidential, so I don’t question it.

With this, and a Sam Cooke movie, the biopic world looks on healthy ground right now. It’s a shame that Paul Greengrass’s Martin Luther King, Jr movie Memphis got axed, but even without it, the trend seems to be taking on the stories of famous black Americans. There are plenty of stories to mine there, and plenty of other fascinating figures from American history as well. Hopefully these films come out swinging because as it stands, they’re both off to a great start.

Related Topics:

Movie stuff at VanityFair, Thrillist, IndieWire, Film School Rejects, and The Broken Projector Podcast@brokenprojector | Writing short stories at Adventitious.