I’m not much of a football fan. However, I’ve been hearing more and more about the deadly effects that hit after hit can have on the players. Recently, Hall of Fame running back and a huge legend to Dallas Cowboys fans, Tony Dorsett was recently diagnosed with the earliest stages of CTE (chronic encephalopathy) a degenerative brain disease commonly found in athletes who participate in contact sports.
Football has come under some controversy due to the dangers of the sport along with the amount of players linked to severe head injuries. Director Ridley Scott hopes to bring about more awareness by helming a film shedding a light on the subject.
Deadline had the details:
Scott wants to create a drama focusing on the debilitating effects that concussions are having on our sports heroes, and the role that league owners play in allowing it to happen. His plan is to create a morality tale on that issue, much the way that Michael Mann’s The Insider took on the tobacco industry’s complicity in covering up the addictive and cancer-causing effects of cigarette smoking. Scott is a big fan of sports including rugby and football, but he is going to focus on pro football. He has been moved reading all that has been written on athletes including former NFL stars Junior Seau and Dave Duerson, both of whom committed suicide after suffering chronic traumatic encephalopathy, with each making sure to leave his brain intact so it could be studied in the hope the results would help their gridiron brethren who also are suffering.
I would certainly be interested in seeing a film that brought attention to this issue. This is something that not only effects football players on the National level but those in college and high school as well.
Scott has EXODUS with Joel Edgerton and Christian Bale lined-up and the sequel to PROMETHEUS. Scott and producing partner Giannina Facio are currently on the lookout for a scribe.