Glen Powell steps up to play baseball’s ‘luckiest man’ in Richard Linklater reunion
The Hit Man collaborators are reuniting for a Universal Pictures biopic charting the life, career and enduring legacy of baseball icon Lou Gehrig, with Powell also serving as a producer.
Glen Powell is set to portray baseball great Lou Gehrig in a new feature directed by Richard Linklater.
Reuniting the filmmaker and actor, 37, for the third time as Universal Pictures brings the life of one of America’s most celebrated sports figures back to the big screen, and Richard, 65, previously collaborated on Everybody Wants Some!! and the critically acclaimed Netflix comedy Hit Man, which Glen also co-wrote and produced.
Universal Pictures has now confirmed the pair are reuniting for an untitled biographical drama about New York Yankees legend Lou Gehrig.
Glen, whose profile has continued to rise following the success of Top Gun: Maverick, Anyone But You and Twisters, is also due to appear in J.J. Abrams’ forthcoming film The Great Beyond.
Director Richard, meanwhile, most recently directed Blue Moon, which received Academy Award nominations for its screenplay and Ethan Hawke’s lead performance, as well as Nouvelle Vague, a drama chronicling the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless.
The new film will tell the story of Lou Gehrig, the Baseball Hall of Famer whose remarkable durability earned him the nickname “The Iron Horse”.
Lou played a then-record 2,130 consecutive Major League Baseball games before his career was cut short after he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the neurological disease that later became widely known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
The sports great delivered one of the most famous speeches in sporting history during his farewell at Yankee Stadium in 1939, declaring himself “the luckiest man on the face of the Earth” before a packed crowd.
The address has since become known as baseball’s “Gettysburg Address”.
Lou died in 1941 at the age of 37.
His story was previously adapted for the screen in the 1942 film The Pride of the Yankees, with Gary Cooper portraying the sporting icon in a performance that became one of the defining baseball biopics in Hollywood history.
The new adaptation will be produced by Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels, alongside Erin David through Broadway Video under the company’s first-look agreement with Universal Pictures.
Glen will also produce through Barnstorm with Dan Cohen, while Richard is in talks to produce through Detour Filmproduction.
The screenplay has been written by Simon Rich, a former Saturday Night Live writer whose recent projects include Artificial, a drama centred on OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman.
Directed by Luca Guadagnino, the project generated headlines after Amazon MGM Studios exited the production before it was acquired by Neon.
Glen has become one of Hollywood’s fastest-rising leading men in recent years, following starring roles in Top Gun: Maverick, Anyone But You, Twisters and Edgar Wright’s upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s The Running Man.
Richard, meanwhile, remains one of American cinema’s most acclaimed filmmakers, with credits including Boyhood, the Before trilogy and Dazed and Confused, alongside his more recent collaborations with Powell.
Universal Pictures has not yet announced a release date or an official title for the Lou Gehrig film.
