Richard Linklater remains prolific enough—if only between his ever-shooting Merrily We Roll Along and planned project on the transcendentalists—that this already has the air of something we only recall by reading a years-old headline and wondering whatever happened there. Nevertheless, it’s nice to read he plans on reteaming with Glen Powell on another baseball movie. The subject in question being Lou Gehrig, it’s gained more traction than Hit Man’s independent production: per Deadline, the film is set up at Universal and will be produced by Lorne Michaels, whose credits on films that don’t prominently feature Saturday Night Live alumni are few and far between.
SNL writer Simon Rich (who also scripted Luca Guadagnino’s Artifical) is tapped to pen the film, about which broad strokes—baseball in macro, Yankees and Murderer’s Row in micro, the contraction of Lou Gehrig’s Disease—can be inferred, maybe altogether inspired by the Gary Cooper vehicle Pride of the Yankees; Deadline’s article also claims “one of Gehrig’s teammates expected to have an important role in the film is Babe Dahlgren, the man tasked with replacing Gehrig at first base.” Linklater loves baseball, ensembles, and camaraderie, which just so happens to be evidenced best by Everybody Wants Some!!—one wonders if the opportunity to revisit those bases with massive financial support is a key here. It’s certainly one of the bigger reasons to be excited.