The Playlist has informed us that the on-screen film adaptation, The Fighter, about the former light welterweight title holder, Irish Micky Ward (38-13, 27 Ko's), is set to begin shooting as early as this October.
A major motion picture about the life and times of Micky Ward, a boxer with a cult irish following, who more or less made his career off 36 rounds of using his head as a punching bag, doesn't strike us as a must-watch film, especially considering the mountainous heap of great boxing stories left untold about boxers with much more interesting tales and just plain better careers. However, it is a boxing movie and since about one is released every three years, it is without a doubt worth seeing, if for nothing more than the cast involved.
It was reported quite some time ago that Mark Wahlberg was inline to play the Irish fighter out of Massachussettes. "I've been training for two years now. I'm ready. I want to look like a champ, not a chump... I want to do [Ward] proud. He came from nothing, went on to win the world title with all the odds stacked against him," Whalberg told MTV.
The director Darren Aronofsky's, who also directed "Requiem for a Dream" and "The Fountain," had originally asked Matt Damon to play the part of Ward's ex-drug addict, boxer-turned-trainer, half- brother, Dicky Eklund. When Damon decided to step down from the role, another A-list actor filled the void, none other than Brad Pitt.
The fact that all of these guys have signed their names to the flick make it instantly more intriguing. And although it's not the first boxing tale we would have chosen for the silver screen, we find it hard to believe that these three guys will let this fail.
See Micky Ward on a corny local news telecast discussing the book and movie based on his life . He's definitely not a talker - could be due to blows sustained to the organ that controls human speech patterns (or possibly the ingestion of too much chowdah)
1 comment:
If half the fighters still fighting had half of Ward's heart today boxing wouldn't be struggling. The guy is an inspiration in every sense of the word. Watch Ward Gatti I--if Floyd Mayweather Junior had the balls of one of those two and knocked people out instead of yapping about how much fucking money he's got maybe people would respect him as the champ instead of just being depressed that he is what boxing has come to. Ward was a throw-back, he fought with everything he had and comported himself with dignity. Of course he wasn't the most talented fighter ever to walk the earth, that's whats so inspiring about his story. He made himself a career on guts, with some help from an iron jaw and a vicious left hook.
Post a Comment