Anthony Mackie Races to Jesse Owens Biopic; Stephan James Confirmed for Another

And the hits just keep coming for Anthony Mackie, who seems to be lining up one high-profile gig after another. He's already part of the Marvel Universe as Falcon in Captain America: The Winter Soldier; he's part of John Hillcoat's incredible Triple Nine cast, there's the Christmas comedy he signed up for alongside Seth Rogen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and only recently Mackie agreed to play Jimi Hendrix in a new film. And now he's developing a biopic that will see him as groundbreaking Olympic athlete, Jesse Owens.

Mackie is putting together a still-untitled film on Owens that he would star in and produce alongside his We Are Marshall and 10 Years screenwriter, Jamie Linden. Penning the screenplay will be George Olson, chronicling the story of Owens, the track legend who won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, squashing Adolf Hitler's claims of Aryan supremacy in the process.

There are a number of Owens films in the works but if Mackie gets his rolling he'll have a leg up on the competition. Disney has one in the works from the writer of The King's Speech, while another directed by Stephen Hopkins has just finally gotten off the blocks. John Boyega had been set to star in Race, which Hopkins will direct from a script by Anna Waterhouse and John Shrapnel. Boyega dropped out when he signed on for Star Wars: Episode VII, and now his replacement has been found in Stephan James, a relative unknown with upcoming roles in Ava Duvernay's Selma and sports drama When the Game Stands Tall.   [Deadline]

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John Boyega will 'Race' to Jesse Owens Biopic

After the fan-favorite Attack the Block, many were eager to see what star John Boyega would do next. His HBO project with Spike Lee didn't pan out, and few saw him opposite Chiwetel Ejiofor in Half of a Yellow Sun. Currently he's knocking them dead here at Sundance for the gritty drama, Imperial Dreams (which I'm heading out to see in a few minutes), but he's just landed a film that could do for him what 42 did for Chadwick Boseman.

Variety reports Boyega will play Olympic track star Jesse Owens in Race, a new biopic directed by Stephen Hopkins. The script by Anna Waterhouse and John Shrapnel will chronicle his upbringing as the son of an Alabama sharecropper to the winner of four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics, shattering Adolf Hitler's myth of an Aryan supremacy in the process.

Filming is set to begin in May, and it'll be interesting to see how this affects Disney's Owens biopic which only just gained Antoine Fuqua as director. Chances are there won't be room for both.

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Antoine Fuqua to Direct Disney's Jesse Owens Biopic

In a year that saw Warner Bros. break the bank with 42, on color barrier-breaking baseball star Jackie Robinson, Disney is headed in a similar direction. They're developing a biopic on Olympic track & field superstar, Jesse Owens, and they've got White House Down's Antoine Fuqua to direct it.

Based on the book Triumph by ESPN analyst Jeremy Schaap, and adapted by The King Speech scribe David Seidler, the film "recounts Owens’ rise from a poor childhood in 1920s Cleveland to his ascendance in running and the long jump. At Berlin, he won four gold medals, a direct affront to Adolf Hitler's ideas of Aryan superiority."

Anthony Mackie had been working on his own Owens film some time ago but this will probably put that one to rest, if it hadn't been shuttered already. Perhaps Disney, who already have Mackie in the fold for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, will turn to him for the lead? [THR]

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