Robert Redford has teamed up with the folks who brought us Ray to produce yet another biopic movie about folks overcoming racial barriers. This time the objects of review will be Jackie Robinson, the first black man to ever take the field in Major League Baseball history, and the man who helped make it happen, Dodger's general manager Branch Rickey.
Redford informed Variety that the movie will be "a simple story, and one that most don't know about—how the color barrier was broken and changed the face of baseball and ultimately the country." The film is being developed with the permission of the families of both Rickey and Robinson.
I wasn't aware that Robinson's story was such an untold story. After all, he got a cameo in a MasterCard commercial not too long ago. It could just be that Ray's smashing success is heralding a new era of feel-good racial justice biopics (don't get me started on the disturbing possibility of a Michael Jackson project). Either way, this sounds like an interesting movie idea, and with Redford at the helm, it's sure to be a moving experience that will have everyone in tears by the end of the show. I'm getting all teary-eyed just thinking about it.
