Turns out what everyone has been saying about Texas Rangers slugger Josh Hamilton for years is going to come to fruition. And it turns out, someone can write a movie script about this. That someone appears to be Casey Affleck, the younger brother of star Ben Affleck, and a minor star himself from films such as Ocean's Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and earlier work in his brother's hits such as Good Will Hunting.
Now, Casey Affleck is reportedly set to write and direct a biopic of Hamilton, who has long been called "The Natural" for some of the parallels between his life/career and that of Robert Redford's character in the classic baseball movie by the same name.
Of course, we all know Hamilton's back story — No. 1 pick out of high school with insane, unbelievable talent to drug-riddled crack addict and tattoo aficionado, to resurrected career with troubles with relapse along the way. It's all there. You seriously couldn't write that script. Affleck hopes he can.
It'll be interesting to see how much of the bad the movie goes into, especially since Hamilton and his wife, Katie, are set to be co-producers of the film along with producer Basil Iwanyk of Thunder Road Pictures.
“I truly think this guy’ story is one of the most inspiring stories I’ve ever read,” Iwanyk told Deadline.com. “It’s also tailor-made for a movie: it has the mythic quality of The Natural, the faith-based angle of The Blind Side, and faith is a major part of our story, and the romance of Walk the Line. Casey has totally captured those elements in his take for the movie. It is an extraordinary odyssey that took him from the depths of drug addiction, estrangement from his family, and suspension from baseball to a spectacular rebirth of his life, faith, marriage and major league career.”
So that begs the question, who plays Hamilton in the film? My guess is Matthew McConaughey, who bares a resemblance and has the accent down. Or possibly a toned down Will Ferrell, who also bares a striking resemblance but would have trouble being taken seriously. Who you got?
