LeBron James Shoots for Big Screen Stardrom

Which will happen first for LeBron? A championship ring or a hit movie?

LeBron James is one of the biggest sports stars in the world, but that apparently is not enough. Now, Variety reports, James wants to conquer Hollywood as well. He’ll star in “Fantasy Basketball Camp” for Universal Pictures and Imagine entertainment.

What’s it about? Well, a fantasy basketball camp, duh. James will play himself but in this version of life, he spends his off season running the LeBron James Adult Basketball Fantasy Camp, where the campers not only play with the star on teh court, but manage to drag him into their ordinary off the court problems as well. The story came from discussions between James, his partner Maverick Carter, and producer Brian Grazer. The reliably bland Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel are writing the script.

As anyone who’s ever seen him interviewed or in a commercial knows, James is charming and can have fun onscreen. With this movie, he’s putting himself into a position to succeed. He’s playing himself and he is essentially the straight man to the group of (ostensibly) comic actors. If the movie fails, it likely won’t be because of James, but rather because the script is lame or the cast of supporting actors doesn’t work.

Shooting is expected to begin in the summer of 2010, otherwise known as the summer James can declare for free agency, thus setting off a frenzied bidding war. But that’s another story for another blog. James is also in “More Than A Game,” a documentary that focuses on James’s years as a student and basketball prodigy at an expensive, private mostly white Catholic school. And if that’s not enough LeBron also has an autobiography out as well.