The Natural star, Robert Redford, finally has signed on to an untitled film by Legendary Pictures – the historical drama about the Brooklyn Dodgers executive Branch Rickey and one of the most famous real-life baseball players Jackie Robinson.
According to Redford, Mystic River and L.A. Confidential screenwriter Brian Helgeland will scribe and direct the untitled project that will be produced by Legendary Pictures’ Thomas Tull (Inception, The Dark Knight) who has a first-look deal with Warner Bros. They have not yet cast an actor for the Jackie Robinson’s role.
As you know, Robinson broke the baseball color barrier when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers. As the first African American to play in the major leagues he was involved in bringing an end to racial segregation in professional baseball.
The character played by Retford was a guy known by signing Jackie Robinson to be the first black player in the major leagues.
Historical but Redford’s film will look at the complex relationship between Rickey, who scholars believed incorporated in baseball both idealism and economics, and Robinson, the second baseman who experienced much discrimination and faced tremendous challenges when he signed with the Dodgers, rather than at the specifics of Jackie Robinson breaking baseball’s color barrier.
Redford has quoted:
No one really knows the Rickey part, the political maneuvers and the partnership they had to share. It’s the story underneath the story you thought you knew.”
Currently, Redford is still set to play Bill Bryson in the also long-delayed A Walk in the Woods, directed by Barry Levinson.
Watch Brooklyn Dodgers second baseman plays himself, quite well, with Minor Watson as Branch Rickey in Alfred Green’s one of the most convincing baseball biopics ever.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCBoskYx3Is[/youtube]
The Jackie Robinson Story (1950)
