Just when you think Hollywood has run out of original ideas…comes this.
According to Variety, John Lee Hancock, director and co-screenwriter of the award-winning “The Blind Side” and 2002’s baseball feature “The Rookie”, is all set to bring former big leaguer Lenny Dykstra’s life to the silver screen.
I applaud the idea (and would probably go see it… I’ve actually read dude’s biography Nails), but, seriously, the life story of Dykstra is the best thing Hollywood can come up with? Does anyone really want to see the tale of a better-than-average baseball player who, after injuries cut his career short, went on to be an absolute failure of a businessman? Personally, I’d rather see a movie about the time Dykstra’s Philadelphia Phillies teammate Darren Daulton was abducted by aliens.
Oh, and who to play the scrappy former outfielder? Dykstra would like to see either Matt Damon or Mark Wahlberg in the title role. Of course he does.
Now, I brought up the proposed Dykstra movie so I could tell you about this. Turns out, he’s not the only member of the 1986 New York Mets World Championship team garnering interest from filmmakers.
They all are.
Lifelong Mets fan Heather Quinlan is currently in production on a documentary about that legendary ’86 team and, as she says, “what made the team so great, the year so memorable, the story so New York, and why it couldn’t last.” And the New Yorker needs your help.
With just over a week to go on its Kickstarter campaign, the documentary is less than a fifth of the way to its $50,000 goal.
Sure, part of the documentary is going to feature Game Six (Quinlan actually gets Bill Buckner and Mookie Wilson together for an interview), but, mostly, what excites me is her access to, not only the stunning cast of characters that made up the team, but, also fringe guys like the team chaplain and the dude who wrote “Let’s Go Mets”.
Unlike the Dykstra biopic…Quinlan’s documentary can’t get completed quick enough.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BgQPhjKByg]
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