There is currently a biopic on the life of Sugar Ray Robinson in the works…
According to Deadline and Shadow And Act, David Oyelowo will play Sugar Ray Robinson in Sweet Thunder, a biopic based on the Wil Haygood’s acclaimed biography Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson.
Deadline – http://www.deadline.com/2012/10/david-oyelowo-attached-to-play-sugar-ray-robinson-in-sweet-thunder/
Shadow And Act – http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/david-oyelowo-tapped-to-play-sugar-ray-robinson-in-biopic-sweet-thunder#
Sweet Thunder chronicles Robinson’s exploits with an emphasis on an intriguing aspect of the fighter’s early career. Despite being the class of his field in the welterweight and later the middleweight class, Robinson spent too long watching inferior fighters get title matches, boxers that he’d whipped soundly in non-title fights. The reason: boxing was controlled by organized crime, and Robinson declined to get in bed with them, and refused to throw a fight. Robinson helped expose that seedy underbelly of the business. Moneyball producer Rachael Horovitz and Game Change scribe Danny Strong will produce, and Oyelowo will be executive producer.
All of this came together on the set of the Lee Daniels-directed The Butler, the film that Oyelowo stars in with Oprah Winfrey and Forest Whitaker. Strong wrote that script, based on Haygood’s Washington Post article, and the three of them found the beats of the boxing movie.
Of course I will keep you posted on this project as it continues to develop.
