John Lee Hancock clearly has a soft spot for true stories, be they inspirational and sports-related-- The Rookie, The Blind Side-- or slightly less inspirational and based on historical events in which everybody died-- The Alamo. Next up in Hancock's history cycle is another recent true story, and you guessed it, it's one with a happy ending. According to Deadline, the director will be following up the Oscar-nominated The Blind Side with Electric Boy Genius, about engineering prodigy Ryan Patterson.
The film will be based on a 2002 GQ article that Disney optioned years ago, and while that article doesn't seem to be available online, Patterson was featured in Wired the same year for inventing a glove that translates sign language-- as a high school senior. Patterson won the 2001 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair and landed a job in aerospace robotics with Lockheed Martin following his graduation from college in 2006.
It all sounds like a more eggheady version of your typical, slightly intolerable inspirational story, but it does come with a slight twist-- the script will be written by Doug Wright, who won a Tony for his play I Am My Own Wife and also wrote the screenplay for Quills. In short, the man is talented, and his contributions may be able to boost Electric Boy Genius--what a great title!-- to something a little more subtle than the clunky-yet-uplifting The Blind Side. At least, we may as well have hope for now until proven otherwise.
