Al Pacino will prove once again his chameleon-like acting, by taking the role of Joe Paterno in HBO’s latest biopic. Pacino will participate in a film adaptation of the Jerry Sandusky sex scandal, that took down Penn State’s illustrious college football program.
Joe Paterno’s Biopic produced by Sony Pictures and HBO
Al Pacino is set to emulate yet another controversial figure. The veteran actor will be playing Joe Paterno, the former Penn State University football coach; who became mired in the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal in an upcoming HBO movie.
The film, which is yet to be named, will be directed and produced by Barry Levinson. While Jason Sosnoff, Tom Fontana, Edward Pressman, Lindsay Sloane, and Rick Nicita will serve as executive producers. The script is in the hands of Debora Cahn, John C. Richards, and David McKenna. While Sony Pictures Television produces the film.
The HBO movie will focus on Paterno dealing with the fallout from the child abuse scandal involving his former assistant, Jerry Sandusky. The all-time winningest coach in major college football history was fired days after Sandusky’s Nov. 2011 arrest. He died two months later at the age of 85.
The official logline for the film reads: “After becoming the winningest coach in college football history, Joe Paterno is embroiled in Penn State’s Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal, challenging his legacy and forcing him to face questions of institutional failure on behalf of the victims.”
Another controversial role for Al Pacino
Pacino first expressed interest in playing Paterno on the silver screen nearly five years ago. His manager said he wanted to turn Joe Posnanski’s 2012 biography into a movie.
The upcoming production marks the latest in a string of TV movies Pacino has done for HBO, where he portrays real-life controversial figures. The actor has played attorney Roy Cohn, assisted-suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian, and music producer/murderer Phil Spector. Paterno’s film is directed by Barry Levinson, who worked with Pacino on two of those films: ‘You Don’t Know Jack’, and ‘Phil Spector’.
This will also be Pacino’s second go-round as a football coach; in 1999, he starred as fictional coach Tony D’Amato in Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday. But there’s nothing to fear, seems the actor will also take on his mob boss acting roots in another upcoming project.
In addition to the TV movie, Pacino has been tapped to play Jimmy Hoffa, in the upcoming Martin Scorsese film ‘The Irishman’. For which Netflix has gained the rights. Also starring in that flick will be Robert De Niro, Bobby Cannavale, Joe Pesci, and Harvey Keitel.
What’s the Sandusky scandal again?
Paterno, best known as JoePa, was a well-regarded college football coach. He was the head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions from 1966 to 2011. With 409 victories, Paterno is the most victorious coach in NCAA FBS history.
Throughout his career, he won different awards and honors, including Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year in 1986. Other awards include winning five times the AFCA Coach of the Year. In 2006, he entered the ‘College Football Hall of Fame’ after the National Football Foundation decided to change its rules. Allowing any coach over the age of 75 to be eligible for the Hall of Fame instead of having to wait until retirement.
His latest award was the NCAA Gerald R. Ford Award in 2011, which was later revoked by NCAA.It was in this year when it came to light that his assistant coach, Sandusky, was being accused of sexually abusing several underage children. A crime for which he was later convicted.
Penn State fired Paterno in November 2011, with one member of the school’s Board of Trustees saying at the time that Paterno either “knew about and swept it under the rug, or he didn’t ask enough questions.”
The verdict
Paterno passed away two months later of lung cancer at the age of 85. A report issued after his death, by former FBI director Louis Freeh, concluded that Paterno and three top Penn State officials: “Failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade.” Last month, the three former Penn State administrators either pleaded guilty or were found guilty of child endangerment in a Pennsylvania court.
Each was sentenced to serve at least two months in jail. Since they failed to alert law enforcement about a 2001 incident involving Sandusky and a boy in a campus shower. Though a lawyer for former Penn State president, Graham Spanier, said he plans to appeal.
In 2012, a jury found Sandusky guilty on 45 counts of sexual abuse that took place from 1994 to 2009; he was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison, which effectively amounts to a life sentence.
Source: The Province