Eddie Fu Follow May 26, 2023 | 4:31pm ET
Will Ferrell is the frontrunner to play late NFL coach, television broadcaster, and video game pioneer John Madden in a new film from David O. Russell, as first reported by Deadline
Simply titled Madden, the biopic will be directed by Russell for Prime Video Sports based on a script by Cambron Clark. The film will focus on Madden’s post-coaching career, during which he created an even bigger legacy as a larger-than-life broadcaster and co-creator of EA Sports’ groundbreaking NFL video game series, which launched in 1988. Madden continued to lend his name and creative input to the franchise even after retiring from the broadcast booth in 2009.
“After being forced into retirement by the Oakland Raiders, fiery former NFL head coach John Madden teams up with a mild-mannered Harvard programmer to rewrite his fading legacy by building the world’s first football video game,” reads Clark’s official logline.
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Ferrell is set to play a Mattel CEO in Greta Gerwig’s highly anticipated Barbie, out July 21st, and voices a revenge-seeking terrier in the raunchy talking dog comedy Strays, which hits theaters this summer. He’s also set to team up with Reese Witherspoon in You’re Cordially Invited.
Meanwhile, Russell most recently directed, wrote, and produced 2022’s Amsterdam, a murder mystery featuring an all-star cast led by Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, and John David Washington.
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