Aaron Pryor His rise out of the Cinncinnati ghetto, being the victim of sexual assault as a young child. Carrying the rage and putting it in a positive direction by boxing. Outstanding amateur career but misses the Olympic games. Turns pro and takes the world by storm wins the world championship. Then doesn't get the recognition or $ his talent deserved until an icon challenges him attempting to make history at his expense. By the way his crazy wife helps add some levity. Then cut to the amazing fight with ETM. Pryor winning the fight is informed by his loyal trainer that despite kicking ass the fight is fixed and Arguello will get the decision if it goes to the cards (true). The hell it will! Pryor more determined than ever takes a swig of Crack water and goes out to destroy ETM in heroic fashion. The hero prevails. Aaron Pryor on the verge of Superstardom can't get a fight with Ray Leonard or Mancini walks into a Miami Crackhouse doesn't come out literally for weeks. His manager Buddy LaRosa drives to the crackhouse goes in and pulls Aaron out. Pryor literally has bullet holes in his brand new Caddy. (True) Pryor is a full blown crackhead loses to (Willie Falldown) or was it (Kenny Getup?) Goes to prison eventually finds recovery and turns his life around. He become a Deacon at his local church, a new man he reaches out to others who suffer from addiction and is a positive force in his community. Including the author of this post. RIP Champ
Jerry Quarry. Starts as a young boy with an abusive father then the big fights the drink and drugs the divorces the comebacks and then the tragic end. Would be a tough watch.
By turns sappy and simplistic. With lots of over emotional crying and soap opera nonsense from Johnson, like they have all heroes do in movies these days. Villains would be cardboard, too, and it would be built around 2022 political issues.
Thanks for sharing that. I do think a working title could be: Give Me the Bottle (The One I Mixed) You can’t do this movie honestly without addressing that.
Truth is biopics are usually pretty trite and often just a series of scenes slapped together that rarely get into character depth. The Duran movie is a good example. And they often tank at the box office. “He had an interesting life/rose up from poverty” isn’t going to usually cut it — you can make the same movie much more interesting with fictional characters and it could be about any sport. They’re also often near impossible to cast for boxing as you need a lot of super-fit guys and then you have to teach them in a few weeks how to passably look like a boxer in the ring, which works less often than not. And for us those actors who can pass still really don’t resemble the guys they are portraying no matter what you do. It’s a hard needle to thread. I think more success could be had by picking a particular fight that tells a greater story about a time and weaves in greater issues that put the fight in perspective. You could probably make a Louis-Schmeling fight that has the rise of the Nazi party as a backdrop and Max’s unwilling participation in holding up the superior race ideal of the leadership of his home country, and how Max and Joe became lifelong friends. To me, that’s a movie that could resonate far beyond the narrow boxing audience and one worth making. I’m sure there are others.
There is a very good flick called Joe & Max about Louis and Schmeling. It covers both their bouts plus struggles later in life. After Max lost to Louis, Hitler made him a paratrooper as punishment. In the 50s, he became a distributor for Coca-Cola and did well financially. Helped Joe out with some $ later in life and the two became friends. It's a great story. I want to see a movie about Joe Grim - the man who never won a fight that nobody could knock out. It'd have more blood and punishment in it than Passion of the Christ!
ah, No! a complete BS of a career that Mocks the Integrity of True Great BOXER's in a Business where there is NO Integrity... nothing to see here folks. and I like Fury.
The Klitschko brothers. Especially with they way they are conducting themselves today during the Russian invasion.
The CrackWater played a very minor role. I wouldn't even mention it. I could possibly squeeze it in fine print during the credits
It’s literally the first thing anyone thinks of when that fight comes up, lol. Heck it’s probably the first thing most people think of when Pryor is even mentioned. It’s one step short of leaving ‘No Mas’ out of a Roberto Duran movie.
I think you and I both understand what it takes for Big Box Office success, that is why I stated what I did a few Post pages back and I see you think along similar lines... and many of the names thrown out, are just not the right Stories.
You could make a Bigfoot Martin movie but make it about the mythical creature and have Everett play the title role. (They would always point out in his fights that he wore size 9 shoes and scratch their head at the nickname and not realize the man didn’t shave his body and was the hairiest heavyweight you’ve ever seen … he got that nickname in the gym because he was hairy like Bigfoot.)