Lou Gehrig, photo credit: MLB
Glen Powell and Richard Linklater are teaming up for the first major theatrical biopic of baseball legend Lou Gehrig since Gary Cooper starred in the 1942 classic The Pride of the Yankees. Powell and Linklater previously collaborated on Hit Man and Everybody Wants Some!!
According to Deadline’s report on the project, Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels and Eric David will produce through Broadway Video, which has a first-look deal with Universal. Powell and Dan Cohen will produce through Powell’s Barnstorm, another Universal first-look partner, while Linklater is in talks to produce through Detour Film production.
Known as “The Iron Horse,” Gehrig packed a lot into just 14 seasons as a Yankees regular. He scored at least 100 runs and drove in at least 100 for 13 consecutive seasons, led the American League in RBI five times and won the 1934 Triple Crown with a .363 average, 49 home runs and 166 RBI. In 1931, he set an American League record with 185 RBI. He was just as formidable in the postseason, batting .361 with 10 home runs and 35 RBI in 34 World Series games while helping the Yankees win six championships.
His endurance became nearly as famous as his bat. Gehrig played 2,130 consecutive games before removing himself from the lineup on May 2, 1939, as the disease that would later bear his name began robbing him of his strength. He died from complications of ALS two years later, at 37.
Gehrig may be best known to today’s viewers for his farewell speech at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939. Standing before more than 60,000 fans, he declared himself “the luckiest man on the face of the earth,” even as ALS was ending his career and beginning to take his life. The line became an enduring expression of grace under impossible circumstances beyond the baseball diamond.
His legacy has gained renewed visibility since MLB established Lou Gehrig Day in 2021. Observed across the league annually on June 2, the event supports people living with ALS and raises money for research into the still-incurable disease. Sadly, ALS has once again returned to the sports conversation following recent diagnoses of former AEW and TNA wrestler Tanea Brooks, better known as Rebel, and former Tennessee Titans running back Chris Johnson.
Former SNL writer Simon Rich is slated to write the screenplay. Rich also wrote Artificial, Luca Guadagnino’s forthcoming film about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Powell’s recent acting credits include Twisters and The Running Man. Linklater most recently directed Blue Moon and Nouvelle Vague. More than eight decades after The Pride of the Yankees, their film has a chance to look beyond the polished legend of one of MLB’s greatest players and find the more complicated man inside it.
Jenny Catlin is a writer and pop culture enthusiast based in the square states. She’s a contributing writer to The Athletic, a Lighthouse Writers Book Project Fellow, and an award-winning essayist obsessed with obsession. You can find her on Instagram or Substack.