We here at the Playlist have been firmly in the tank for Anthony Mackie since at least 2006’s “Half Nelson,” if not Spike Lee’s wildly uneven “She Hate Me,” so it’s nice to see Hollywood finally coming around and recognizing his talent. As “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” continues its victory lap – $708 million worldwide and counting – and Mackie’s charismatic Falcon continues to be seen the world over, we’ll bring you up-to-date on the actor’s latest moves.
The journey of the Dan Pritzker-helmed “Bolden” is a long and winding one. The biopic focuses on a musician, Buddy Bolden, one of the key figures of early jazz. Not much is known about Bolden, who died in 1931” with his legend being his lasting legacy and no known recordings of his work exist. The film originally began shooting in 2007 with Mackie in the lead role before adjourning for two years until Pritzker – who, it should be noted, is a billionaire – decided he needed to do some “extensive reshoots” with Mackie returning to portray the mysterious musician. As you’ve no doubt surmised, the film has remained unfinished in the intervening years and now Deadline reports Pritzker will once again be returning to the film with another three-month shoot in the hopes of actually finishing the thing. Unfortunately, since Mackie is a busier man these days than he was in 2007, Pritzker will have to return to return to “Bolden” without his leading man. The director has tapped “Downton Abbey” actor Gary Carr as Mackie’s replacement for this latest round of shooting. Third time’s the charm?
Mackie may be dropping one biopic but he’s picking up another, Deadline is also reporting that the “Hurt Locker” star is developing his own Jesse Owens film with Jamie Linden (“We Are Marshall”). The pair will shop the movie focusing “on the run-up to the 1936 games, and the profound impact that the performance by Owens had on the world.” Mackie’s Owens biopic – which he plans to star in – should not be confused with the one “Attack The Block” star John Boyega was attached to before departing for “Star Wars: Episode 7.” The Wrap reports that the Stephen Hopkins-helmed film – titled, simply, “Race” – has already found a replacement for Boyega in the form of fellow young rising actor Stephen James, who’ll next be seen in “Selma.”
And if two Jesse Owens biopics aren’t enough for you, “The King’s Speech” writer David Seidler is hashing out an adaptation of Jeremy Schaap’s “Triumph” for Disney, which is being pegged as “a full scale biopic.” As we learned from the “Capote” and “Infamous” debacle a while back, it’s usually the first film of a group sharing the same subject matter that ends up the most successful, so both Disney and Mackie are going to need to speed things up if they hope to catch the early lead of “Race.”
