If I gave you a massive budget to make a film about one boxer

Jack Johnson is honestly the perfect one.

On top of the uber-relevant racial background of the story, is his larger than life personality.
This guy ran away at a young age chasing his idol. He used cleverness and wit to survive on his own.
He had huge dreams, and seemed to look at himself as the main character in a grand movie.

He seemed to see his own race as a transient thing that just happened to be bestowed upon his soul through some random roll of the dice luck. He identified strongly with his race, and understood his role in 1900 American life as black man, but he also had this ongoing awareness of the ridiculousness of it all; that he could just as well be a potato farmer from Ireland, and that his life shouldn't be confined to such narrow expectations. There is something extremely relatable about this struggle to maintain your individuality.

When the movie audiences see him laugh at the white crowd, and flirt with his opponents girlfriends ringside, they'll feel like they are there too, doing the same thing. Because that's the justice they want to imagine they themselves would practice in that situation. They'll adore and respect him for that, because it reveals this time-traveler like awareness.

Johnsons almost divine sense of individuality is what gave him the gall to beat up white men surrounded by tens of thousands of people. And the almost insane-like drive to reign supremacy in the supreme sport. Not just being good at boxing, but stalking the white champions, and challenging their racist color lines. And the insurmountable bravery to do so generations prior to Jackie Robinson.

Most Hollywood movies today indirectly treat boxing as this hush hush sport with violent outcomes that should bring an unspoken shame to its spectators.
In this movie, I would treat the craft of boxing with lore-rich reverence.

The importance of being a great boxer is that you create wealth, status, representation, and pride for your inner and wider communities. I would communicate those stakes through story telling techniques in the most tangible way possible.

And do so in a way that when people are introduced to Sam Langford, and Jim Jeffries, they'll want to see a movie on them too!

 

Interesting.

What about Johnson defending his position and giving the audience a choice or sorts?
Johnson seemed far more active than Langford in breaking the color line and securing his title shot. Was he not more scrappy and imaginative to get it done? One must wonder if Johnson would've figured a way into the title picture with Langford had the tables been reversed? Perhaps from Johnsons perspective, he did all the legwork, and he sees Langford as wanting it on a silver plate. I'd have to do a deeper dive into the topic to understand more of the nuances.

I can picture a scene akin to the Jobs-Gates standoff from Pirates of Silicon Valley.
One that makes the audience think and debate both sides amongst themselves.

 

No he did not! Drugs played NO part in Quarrys story. Give the man credit for that at least. He was all fighter alll clean,. The tooter was also the coward GERRY COONEY. DON'T EVER COMPARE THE TWO! What an insult to a true warrior spirit in Quarry.

 

that would actually be a sick kinda film to watch, but kudos it might even grab an Oscar, and ironically become the first fully "anti-boxing" boxing movie (unless you count the recent Journeyman).

Russell Crowe strikes me today as old enough and ideal as hes starting to look a little dishevelled now and is about the right age.

Told in flashback would be my guess is what you mean, as a chain of memories symbolising that Jerrys mind and thoughts are still very much alive inside a half baked brain and body. I always thought that would be a good idea for poor soul Ezzard Charles too, told from his last days of ALS, when the only thing left he had was his mind inside a shell of a body.

I actually dislike writing just this post, since I've seen a few patients go that way over a course of a few years, and you dread what they are thinking inside. I am not sure who would want to go the whole hog of making such a disturbing movie. Darren Aronsky watshisname?

 

James Earl Jones one is well outdated and too loose for a biography. Its 100 years since JJ left the title scene, the time is ripe for a new one! That turn of the century zeitgeist is too good to pass up.

 

you'd have to change his name to get away with something like that, call him Moneyway or something, or Money would sue them and make another packet of money, knowing him.

 

Jacksons films work in fits and bursts, but its a herculean task to film a book that was thought of as "unfilmable" for most of the 20th century.

As much as I hate some of his work in LOTR/TH (theres about a dozen scenes that are just plain wrong for me), he did alright for enough of it to warrant a fair move. The first was the best by a country mile, you can see he worked it as best he could.

Theres always room for toher interpretations - Amazon are already planning a TV series, you may have heard.

 

don cheadle would kill it, but hes getting a bit old now.

 

This.

 

Nigel Benn?

 

Twisting the rules a bit - because it's not about one boxer - but I've always thought a story about Eubank and Benn would make a great film. I sort of imagine like the film Rush from a few years back, following both Benn and Eubank in juxtaposing stories as they went from troubled youths through different avenues into boxing stars and climaxing with their epic 1990 battle for the WBO Middleweight Title.

 

I don't know...I could see him holding a personal screening in his 50-seat movie theater and standing up and ridiculing the scenes that portray him as caring about Pacquiao or the adulation of white boxing fans and pundits.

https://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/09/floyd-mayweather-new-house-beverly-hills-palace-pictures-video

 

Typical "back to the mud" stories:
- Jermain Taylor
- Pavlik

"Found redemption in boxing":
- Bernard Hopkins

And my favorite (Psychollogical thriller):

- Edwin Valero - El Inca: A successful amateur boxer who is going to debut on professional boxing is involved in a severe motorcycle accident. After brain surgery he recovers and is allowed to fight, but something has changed. Something is starting to grow in his head.... Then, as he is becoming a boxing star, he enters a rising path of madness and violence. Everybody knows how it ends.