The Hollywood Reporter has the early word on Tom McCarthy‘s next project, Million Dollar Arm, which will revolve around the true story of sports agent J.B. Bernstein and his discovery of pitchers Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel through his “Million Dollar Arm” contest in India. Singh and Patel, as the winners of Bernstein’s contest, went on to become the first Indian-born athletes to sign a professional baseball contract in the United States. (They joined the Pittsburgh Pirates.) Read more on the true story at THR or in this CNN article from December 2008.
McCarthy, you’ll recall, made his directorial debut in 2003 with The Station Agent, and directed Richard Jenkins to an Oscar nomination four years later in The Visitor. McCarthy‘s most recent work behind the camera, the Paul Giamatti-starrer Win Win, opened to a favorable response at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. (Watch the recently-debuted trailer or read Jordan’s review by clicking here.)
Aside from a story credit for Pixar’s Up, though, McCarthy has yet to write anything that he didn’t direct himself. The report, which doesn’t mention any directing prospects, certainly doesn’t deny that McCarthy could do the directing, but I’d assume that Walt Disney Pictures would have given him the entire writer-director gig up front if they weren’t looking around for other potentials. But we’ll have to wait for the official word on that, I guess.
Mayhem Pictures’ Mark Ciardi and Gordon Gray are signed on as producers, as is Joe Roth.
Do you agree with Disney’s hiring of McCarthy? Have you enjoyed his writing in the past?