Brian Helgeland and Legendary Pictures are developing a new film based on history’s most celebrated baseball figure, Jackie Robinson, in collaboration with Robinson’s widow, Rachel Robinson.
The big question has, of course, been, who should be cast to play Jackie Robinson?
It’s just been announced that relative newcomer Chadwick Boseman (who’s worked primarily in television on shows like Fringe, Justified and Castle) is in final negotiations to play Jackie Robinson in the biopic titled 42 (after his jersey number which was retired by all major league baseball teams in 1997).
Brian Helgeland will direct from a script he also wrote, which will tell Robinson’s story, as the first African-American to play in the major leagues. I’m guessing this won’t be a birth-to-death biopic, and will instead focus on highlights from Robinson’s life.
Harrison Ford will star as Branch Rickey, the innovative Major League Baseball executive who is best known for breaking MLB’s color barrier by signing Jackie Robinson to a minor league contract in 1945. Two years later, at the start of the 1947 major league baseball season, Robinson was signed to the Brooklyn Dodgers major league baseball team with the help of Rickey. Rickey was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967.
