Jon Voight will play Bear Bryant in the upcoming high school football movie Woodlawn, Variety is reporting. The film will cover forced integration of Alabama’s public schools and Tony Nathan, a star African-American player at Woodlawn whom Bryant recruited to play at Alabama.
Jon Voight could be Hollywood’s best Bear Bryant ever
Alabama’s famed head coach will hit the silver screen one more time.
Joe Kohen/Getty Images
Sean Astin, who played the titular role in noted football movie Rudy, will also be in the film as the team’s counselor and mascot. The directors, brothers Jon and Andrew Erwin, got their start working as “camera operators for ESPN and covering games at the University of Alabama,” Variety reports.
This isn’t the first time Hollywood has attempted to tackle Alabama’s famous head coach. Bryant has already been portrayed on the big screen by Gary Busey in The Bear (1984).
Tom Berenger also took his stab at it in the 2002 TV movie The Junction Boys.
Sonny Shroyer put on the houndstooth hat in the little-known Forrest Gump (1994), a movie definitely nobody knows.
Voight is likely the closest of the three to getting the voice down right, and he has previous expereince in sports movies as well. He played Adolph Rupp in Glory Road, Coach Kilmer in Varsity Blues, Howard Cosell in Ali and boxer Vic Bealer in The All-American Boy. But let’s not kid ourselves: even this won’t overshadow the potential for SWITZER, THE MOVIE.
See More:
