Two of television’s top leading men are venturing yet again to the feature film world, both having experience portraying very different types of fathers. First up, Mad Men star Jon Hamm, who is coming off roles in The Town and Friends with Kids, has linked up with a feel-good Disney project surrounding baseball, a topic which is no surprise after Moneyball‘s success last year.
Deadline reports he is circling a role in Million Dollar Arm, a sports drama that would have him play agent J. B. Bernstein, who found MLB pitchers through the odd avenue of cricket reality show in India. Thomas McCarthy, the fantastic writer/director behind Win Win, The Visitor and The Station Agent wrote the script and one hopes he’ll go on to direct when the film shoots this fall. Check out more of the story below.
Bernstein repped top talent, but was burnt out and disillusioned until he watched the cricket game on late night TV and noticed how similar the game’s throwing motion was to that of baseball pitchers. He headed to India and wound up hatching the reality show Million Dollar Arm and auditioning 40,000 hopefuls. He brought back the two 19-year old finalists to the U.S., but it wasn’t as simple as signing with a ball club and heading to the minor leagues. Neither player had ever ventured beyond their rural village and Bernstein had to teach them as much about American culture and speaking English as he did the rules of baseball. All the work paid off when the imports became the first Indian players to sign pro baseball teams when they got contracts with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Speaking of Moneyball, Deadline also lets us know that Jonah Hill and Leonardo DiCaprio will be joined by Friday Night Lights star Kyle Chandler in Martin Scorsese‘s highly-anticipated drama The Wolf of Wall Street. Chandler would join as FBI Agent Coleman, who tracks down stockbroker Jordan Belfort (DiCaprio) in the film based on his memoirs. Written by Terence Winter of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire fame, the film will follow Belfort on his corrupted rise and fall of Wall Street, aided by drug and alcohol problems, leading him to a 22-month prison stint.
With Friday Night Lights over, Chandler has quickly jumped on some of the top adult-centered fare Hollywood has to offer, with roles in Ben Affleck‘s upcoming Argo and Kathryn Bigelow‘s Zero Dark Thirty later this year. I wish these television actors the best of luck, since they both strongly deserve their time in the feature film spotlight.
Are you excited to see Don Draper and Coach Taylor take on promising features?