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Robert De Niro to become football coach
by Pankhuri kapoor - March 10, 2010 - comments
Oscar winner, Robert De Niro plays a football coach in a biopic titled 'Lombardi'.
Hollywood actor and Oscar winner, Robert De Niro will soon play the role of renowned football coach Vince Lombardi in a biopic.
The biopic titled ‘Lombardi’ is being developed jointly by ESPN Films, Andell Entertainment and the National Football league will narrate how he transformed the Green Bay Packers from a poor performing NFL team to league heroes.
Green Bay packers won five championships in nine years under the expert guidance of Coach Vince Lombardi who died in 1970.
Oscar winner Eric Roth who got the golden trophy for the script of ‘Forrest Gump’ will script the screenplay and Robert De Niro’s Tribeca Productions will co-produce the movie.
“We've had an extraordinary relationship with ESPN for five years through the Tribeca Film Festival, and now we're able to extend that association into production,” informs Jane Rosenthal, co-founder of the Gotham fest, one of the producers of the film.
The chronicle of the American football legend has been tentatively scheduled to release in 2012 during the weekend between the Super Bowl and the conference championship games.
De Niro is the perfect choice
Charles Choplin who is the programming vice-president at NFL says, “There are few actors who could accurately portray the fire, passion and grit of Lombardi, and we're thrilled to have Robert De Niro on our team,”
“Having an icon portray an icon on film is amazing and with a writer as talented as Eric working on the script, the results could be magical for NFL fans,” adds Ron Semiao, senior vice president of ESPN Films.
Robert De Niro has earlier played the role of boxer, Jake LaMotta and so this is the 66 year old actors second sports biopic.
Robert De Niro ventures into Bollywood
Reportedly, the Hollywood actor will distribute Dev Benegal directed Bollywood flick ‘Road’ starring Abhay Deol, in the United States.
The movie was premiered at top film festivals in Toronto, Tokyo, Doha and Berlin last year and became the first Hindi language movie to be taken by Fortissimo Films.
Indian Films’s CEO, Sandeep Bhargava affirms, “Road, Movie has truly crossed over.”
Satish Kaushik, one of the actor’s in ‘Road’ says, “I couldn’t believe somebody like Robert De Niro was saying that he has heard all good things about Road, Movie and wants to watch the film.”
“He requested us to provide him with a copy of the film. He was so humble that we have all become his fans now. Apart from being such a great artiste, he is also a wonderful human being,” he concluded.