David O. Russell’s ‘Madden’ starts production in January.

David Russell (American Hustle) is set to direct a Steve Madden biopic, tentatively titled “Madden”. Nicholas Cage is set to portray the iconic American football coach and commentator. We just got an update regarding this project. It apparently starts production in January, Amazon MGM is backing the project.

After years in development, the project is officially starting. Nic Cage is the third actor attached to play madden. Will Ferrell and Hugh Jackman both recently dropped out of the project. The movie will not be a token sports biopic, ‘Madden’ is reported to be a “video game movie”. It’s the origin story of EA Sports ‘MADDEN NFL’, one of the biggest sports game franchise in U.S.A. The film will focus on the former coach’s exit from the league and subsequent partnership with EA sports to create the pioneering “Madden NFL” game. The story will recount the rivalry between Madden and ex-footballer Joe Montana, in a race against time to develop the ultimate football video game franchise.

The script was written by Cambron Clark, and was part of the Blacklist for a few years now. Russell is said to have tweaked the script to his own liking and it’s reported that he now has the main screenwriting credit.

David Russell is definitely a good director if he’s given a good script. His last film was 2022’s ‘Amsterdam’, and was panned by the critics. It was not as bad as they made it out to be. I enjoyed the film. It was reported to have lost 20th Century over $100 million. Since then Russell was kinda in the directors jail, there was also lots of reports about how difficult it is working with the filmmaker. Last we heard about him; he had punched a Sony exec in the gut at an Oscar party.