The NFL sticks its large toe into the movie business.
It is exactly one week from today that the NFL season opens with the Cowboys vs. the Super Bowl champion NY Giants. So it is rather appropriate timing for an announcement from the National Football League that they are working together with producer-director Tony Krantz and writer Ron Shelton for a football themed movie.Krantz worked on the TV series “Sports Night” and Shelton has a long history of movies set in the world of sports.
Titled “Week 14,” the film will detail the last three weeks of a season. Variety describes it this way:
“Aimed to be a four-quadrant movie in the vein of “Crash,” pic will chronicle the last three weeks of the NFL’s regular season as seen through the eyes of fictional players, coaches and their significant others.
The script, which Shelton has completed, features interweaving storylines that sources familiar with the project describe as PG-13 content, since the NFL is very protective of its family-friendly brand.”
What makes this different than all the other movies that have been done about professional football (most of them dreadful)? Well, having the NFL imprimatur means they could use actual team names if they want–no “San Jose Seals” or “Savannah Hurricanes.” I don’t know if they’ll choose to use real team names and logos in the movie, but they could if they wanted to, I would think. Also, they could get actual game film from NFL games, which would look a lot better than anything staged for the movie. All this, of course, does not guarantee that the movie will be any good, but they’re nice details to have around.
“Week 14″ will start filming in February after the Super Bowl.
